What’s your favorite color?

   This may not sound like a difficult question. It is for me. Color is my life, how could I limit my choice to just one?

   I consider color to be the most impactful, subjective element to my artwork. Van Gogh once said “Instead of trying to render what I see before me, I use color in a completely arbitrary way to express myself powerfully”. I’ve always been compelled to create this way. My paintings and illustrations always stuck out like a sore thumb in art school critiques. It was only after I studied the Fauves with their pure, bright colors straight from the tube that I realized I am not alone.  

   I have loved creating art my entire life, the earliest memories are from pre-school. Working with children during my college years showed me that art is my lifelong commitment. Many of my most significant artistic expressions occurred at an elementary school table with Crayola markers on butcher paper. A childlike approach to imagery still resonates in my work.

   My art education has taught me alternate and more sophisticated ways of expressing myself, and while I have grown to appreciate nuance and subtlety in value and perspective, I still prefer to boldly experiment with composition and color. Instead of painting images from life, I paint life from my imagination. Acrylics, watercolors and inks are my mediums of choice, though I have discovered bliss in surface design and collage with fiber, and recently created my first “painting” on a kiln fired ceramic bowl. More to come.

   Matisse dreamed of “an art devoid of troubling, depressing subject matter”. I, for one, am doing my part.