The Mysterious Flame
2003 pastel on paper
38" X 51"

I was born in Santa Barbara, California and grew up in a family that considered hiking in the Santa Barbara backcountry and taking long beach walks its own form of worship. I learned early on that my joy was to be found in the details of nature. Often I would lag behind the rest of the family, poking blades of grass down gopher holes, collecting beautiful seed pods or watching the sea anemone close softly when a rush of water entered the tidal pool.

These memory vignettes formed the beginnings of my interest in still life. For the past ten years I have chosen mostly fruits and vegetables as my homage to the details so often overlooked in our fast-paced world: simple abundance, daily routines and rituals, sustenance from Earth.

While I am painting, my goal is to slow down and explore every subtlety of color, form, and the interrelations between subjects and space. Each piece becomes a meditation for me. It is my hope that this mindfulness will find expression in the completed work and become an occasion for the viewer's deeper appreciation of nature.

By including metal and glass elements I am able to dramatize familiar subjects in my still lifes. Through this reflection and distortion I also make reference to the sacred and mysterious elements of our world. I have discovered that in looking deeply at the physical, the metaphysical reveals itself.