As I have evolved in landscape painting, I find myself wanting to convey a mood or atmosphere in the landscape. It’s a sense of a space but not about a particular space, although images of particular moments in a specific place may come to mind as I work. But the end result is a feeling of a moment in time in space. Drawing on my background as a psychotherapist, the work reflects an emotive inner landscape.

Living in the western North Carolina mountains, I am surrounded by trees. On our property, I have developed an affinity bordering on a personal relationship with individual trees. I feel held and contained by them. In reading and viewing The Intelligent Life of Trees, I learned about the interconnectedness and relationship among trees that validated my intuitive experience living with them. I am honored to share their presence on planet earth. As an abstract painter, I have become fascinated with the rhythm of trees.

I am blessed to spend half my year in the natural beauty of the western North Carolina mountains. I have enjoyed playing with abstract landscapes that have a sense of place without specifying place. They are psychological landscapes with often a surreal element.

While much of my work is autobiographical, the Rock and Bones series became explicit. Following a recent major spine surgery in which the successful outcome depended on my body’s production of bone around the site, I became overtly fascinated in my work with rock and bone formations that acquire surreal forms.