Artist Statement

Art for me has become the distraction I wanted from my day to day work. And what a lovely distraction it has become. I had the honor to study and learn watercolors with Dorothy Vorhees. She was not only an artist but a wonderful teacher. A group of us "artist" for 10 weeks would sit in a church hall, to paint, talk and critique. She alway encouraged experimentation with various processes. I then took a printmaking class with Lynn Pierre and transferred what I learned in watercolors to printmaking. I love the process of printmaking especially reductive woodcuts: transferring the image in reverse, planning the layers of colors, slowly reducing the wood block to the final cut, inking the plate, hand rubbing or running it through the press and then lifting the paper slowly to see the image. Sometimes it was exactly what I planned and other times it was a pleasant surprise. What inspires me is when someone at an Art Show asks me, "How did you do that?" That is one I'm in my element and become the teacher. I hope to hear some day that I was the inspiration for someone to create.