My love affair with art began a long time ago, so long, that I really can't remember a time that I wasn't drawing or thinking about something to draw or create. For me, it's a natural part of who I am, an extention of my thoughts. It's like breathing.
I find inspiration all around me. The grandeur of the mountains, the colors of the changing seasons, a winding stream, a stormy sky, that shop on the corner selling flowers...my garden...the dogwood tree beside my driveway...a simple bowl of fruit.
Growing up on Long Island, N.Y. we were never far from the roar of the ocean. I remember the smell of salt and the sound of seagulls hanging heavily in the air; the beach houses white and crisp against the blues of the sky and water and golden hued grasses swaying in the breeze. This is my inspiration. Later, after moving first to North Carolina and then to the foothills in upstate South Carolina, I would find myself winding up steep and dusty gravel roads during fall weekends to go apple picking with my husband and children...often stopping at the edge of a wooded ridge, looking out in awe at the grandeur of the mighty Blue Ridge. This is my inspiration. And later still, arranging pears in the handmade pottery bowls that my sister-in-law gave me as a thank you. This is my inspiration too.
Edgar Degas once said, "A picture is first of all a product of the imagination of the artist; it must never be a copy. If then two or three natural accents can be added, obviously no harm is done. The air we see in the paintings of the old masters is never the air we breathe. "
