"When I was a child we lived on Douglas Mountain in southern Maine. Our house had a big round porch with a wonderful view. I saw the White Mountains on a clear day, watched lightning storms as they traveled from town to town, and glimpsed the northern lights. I was seduced by a love of weather and terrain. This fascination has stayed with me and has affected my life as an artist.
In 2002 I attended a painter’s residency at Pouch Cove in Newfoundland. I had a studio for the month of January that looked into the stormy ocean and I was captured by the view. A year later my husband and I came back to look for a house.
My studio is on a cliff overlooking the ocean near where a river enters the sea. The layers of rocks I can see from my studio window are twisted and folded. In one day, mist, fog, rain and snow can blow across the land ending in a dramatic sunset. The weather changes the nearby river daily, and the river leaves a different imprint on the beach. Although the rocks are fixed, they appear to move like the waves.
A parallel between the weather and my painting process has emerged. My paintings are abstract oils, and I often use mixed media and encaustic. As I scrape and scratch, glaze and layer they develop, changing in a rhythm like the weather on the beach and the ancient rocks.
My paintings make reference to the landscape or express states of the spirit or psyche. The finished work is a record of the processes I’ve gone through as I try to understand the image that is struggling to be expressed. They represent layers of time – a visual palimpsest - reflecting my journey in search of their fleeting revelation."
