About the Artist

The Balinese say, “We have no art. We do everything as well as we can.”

I love this quote. It keeps my inner eye open to appreciate any human effort engaged in the making of something. It also keeps me from being too tightly bound by my own inner critic.

Like most other artists I have studied artmaking for many years, formally for an MFA degree at Cal State Long Beach, specializing in printmaking. I loved it. However, this process requires a lot of space, a lot of time, and equipment. Short of those, I began to apply brush and paint to paper or canvas and began a new journey to figure out what to do with those things. I am grateful to teachers such as Kathleen Dunphy, Keiko Tanabe, Joan Fullerton and Skip Lawrence who did their best to guide me.

Every artist must address the question of why they need to make art. Children do it for the sheer delight of it, and I think that’s the key. We look and try to see deeply with an intuitive gaze. The big question then becomes how to communicate that experience? How can I look at something as if for the first time? Picasso said, “The first half of life is learning to be an adult; the second half is learning to be a child.”

I strive to hold onto that mindset, to see the wonder in something before me, real or imaginary. I struggle to find how I will approach the expression of that wonder. Sometimes I get there. Quite a lot of times I don’t.

We live in a complex and often chaotic world. It can feel dark. My hope is that art encourages people to stop for a moment, look, and let the beauty of the world in. Another mentor of mine, the late artist Corita Kent, reminded us, “Cheer up. It’s lighter than you think.”