Notes from the Studio

October 2026

We’ve had a glorious Indian summer, and my garden went untouched by frost until just the other day, so I’ve been frenetically painting the flowers on my new deck “studio” in the autumn sunshine. I just can’t be satisfied working from photos for my floral pieces — I need to turn them around in my hand and observe them from all angles, outside in their own environment.

After Art in the Pearl I escaped to the coast for a day and a half in glorious solitude, from Cannon Beach to Yachats, climbing down on the rocks and breathing everything in. The results will be amazing, because the source material and memories are. Next comes a new (to me) Sprinter camper to carry me to Hidden in the Hills in Arizona. Beauty in all its forms helps antidote what this crazy world throws at us every day.

September 2026

Here it is September, and while I’ve had some seemingly intelligent thoughts and musings while driving this summer, about the best I can offer right now is: don’t let the cat drink your tea. Dim Sum and his brother Matcha have decided to live under my floating chair and are incorrigible. My show season is winding down — Art in the Pearl in Portland, then Art in the Park in Boise — and I’m looking forward to switching gears and having time to think and write.

Most of all, I want to thank my kind, generous collectors and friends. It has been so wonderful to be reminded of the generosity and kindness that still exists in the world. Thank you for making it possible for me to do what I love.

August 2026

I just finished a painting called “Wild Garden.” It’s curing in the front window of Artworks Gallery in Sandpoint and is my current favorite of my garden pieces. It has an oddly Klimt-like feel to me — I think it’s the roses in the foreground. I’m already dreaming of a companion piece: pink Asiatic lilies taller than me, with a mass of nasturtiums in front. The painting is already done in my head, but it might be a challenge to execute, because the flowers need to be painted from life.

The house has been full of family for Art on the Green, and I’m so proud of my daughter Anya, who is exhibiting her own work there. Next come Sun River and Sun Valley, where I’ll camp by the hot springs, get up for first light, and just disconnect from phone and world.

July 2026

July has brought four new floral pieces I'm genuinely excited about — paintings that finally capture the particular chaos and color of my garden, with more texture and movement than anything I've done before. I've been living happily in my deck studio this summer, birds overhead, floating chairs set up for contemplating a canvas mid-work. It's shaping up to be a busy stretch — fewer shows than usual this year, with more energy going toward the website instead — but I am making it to Arts in the Park in Kalispell, and I'd love to see some of you there. Enjoy these long summer days, and I hope our paths cross in person soon.

June 2026

June arrived with thunderstorms and the poppies have been extraordinary — the garden lit up through the rain in colors I keep wanting to paint before they're gone. A new and rather unexpected studio occupant has appeared: Aiden rescued baby wood ducks, and they have taken up residence in my studio while they're too small for the outside world. I find them, truthfully, excellent company. Most of June is open for commissions, and I'm especially enjoying the outdoor studio work — if you've been thinking about a custom piece, this is a very good time to reach out. One more thing: a new-website email is on its way soon, and I think you'll enjoy seeing the new home for the work.

May 2026

I'm writing from the deck, settled into the swing chair with the spring birds for company — I've set up a small outdoor studio up here, and I love being able to look out over the gardens while I paint. This month I did a whole series of small flower portraits, painted only from life; I really feel you have to hold the blossom in your hand to understand how it's truly formed, all the intricacies of the color. I've also become rather smitten with the ravens living in the big trees at the back of the garden — five or so of them, swooping low over the deck to check things out — and I've been watching documentaries, buying peanuts, hoping to tempt them into modeling for me at some point. Meanwhile, Charles has been quietly rebuilding the website with the help of his AI collaborators, and he's done an incredible job; I'll send a special note when it's ready. For now, I just want to say how genuinely grateful I am to still be supported in doing what I love.

April 2026

I've been enjoying the quiet pleasures of spring in North Idaho — daffodils pushing through, blueberries pruned just in time, small acts of tending that feel, I admit, like small victories. My co-op gallery in Sandpoint continues to be a source of genuine community, a local thread connecting me to fellow artists that I truly value. My large desert canvas is currently on exhibit at the Pend Oreille Winery: the 30x40 painting of Snow Canyon's springtime light, offered as an invitation not to an event, but to witness a place I find endlessly compelling. Gratitude runs through this letter — for the people in my life, for the season turning, for still being part of it all.

March 2026

I had cataract surgery recently — and chose to have it without anesthesia so I could drive myself to the follow-up the next day. Lying there, I found myself thinking of Monet, who deteriorated into cataracts without remedy and had to work through a nebulous haze of color. The comparison moved me: I had feared the same fate, and the relief of clear vision renewed my hunger to paint. On the drive home I pulled over for a phenomenal sunset — on par, I think, with Arizona sunsets, which I consider among the best in the world. My new mixed media pieces, layered with copper and iron paints, rusts and patinas, delight me for their unpredictability; each one feels like an Italian wall that carries the weight of history.

February 2026

February always feels like a turning point to me — even from grey North Idaho, I sense the light shifting toward spring. Winter is often my most focused painting season: I watch French art documentaries to keep my language skills alive, and I paint. I have made myself a rule: nothing leaves the property without first being photographed. From that discipline came an exciting new direction — mixed media pieces that transform giclées into originals through layers of texture, copper and iron paints, rusts and patinas. I've also been thinking about what I call the "Gucci Factor" — the strange human tendency to trust value only once others confirm it — and I gently argue that the real joy is in supporting the living artist.

October 2025

I spent time immersed in the landscape of Baker City, Oregon — photographing it intensively before attempting to paint it, because I believe you must get to know a place before you can capture its poetry. A commission from the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center sent me listening to accounts of the pioneers and mountain men; speeding across those same wild expanses in a modern car, I felt the contrast acutely. I find myself pulled between the art festivals I love for their human connection and the studio time I crave for creation — the festival circuit takes me away from the work that matters most. Two commissions await me on subjects I love, and I'm eager to get back to the easel.

September 2025

It's been a full and rewarding stretch of the fall show season — I took a trip to the coast with my son Aiden after my Bend show, and have been keeping busy at the Art Works gallery in Sandpoint. I have a lot of new paintings to share, mostly of Sun Valley, and I'm heading to Baker City ahead of my October show at the Carnegie Center there, wanting to get a feel for the area and do some local work before the show opens. The personal connection with collectors at shows is something I always treasure.

April 2025

I'm writing from a friend's poolside in the California foothills, surrounded by dove-song and morning light, having impulsively packed paints but forgotten my easel. I painted anyway — small works to capture the beauty — and found myself moved to tears more than once: not in grief, but in the bittersweet way that revisiting beloved places always works. A day in Napa left me wanting to do a whole series of vineyard paintings — I tasted the sun and history in the wines. There is a sense of connection to place that never goes away, even when things change and people are no longer there. I call it a challenge and a privilege to be able to capture and preserve beautiful moments and experiences.

March 2025

Life has been a tornado of change and chaos, and I arrive here with apologies for the silence. But even through difficulty I find my center in something I've come to believe simply: art makes things happier. I believe beauty in our lives antidotes so much of what isn't fantastic, and that belief is not decorative — it's the engine of my practice. I'm also excited about my new mixed media pieces, which I think of as a unique piece of art rather than a mere print: each one takes a canvas giclée and builds an original around it, ready to hang and alive in its own right — a practical kindness I have always found satisfaction in offering.

January 2025

I want to be honest: 2024 was not tranquil. I watched the news and felt my heart go out to those facing devastating losses — a reminder that life can change with terrifyingly little warning. My studio has been in transition, my painting interrupted. But three commissions completed in a single month feel to me like breathing again; I cannot work in chaos any more than a cook can create in a messy kitchen. What I love most is painting the inspiration in the places people hold in their hearts — turning a photograph into poetry of place. I close with deep, unvarnished gratitude: I know how fortunate I am to make a living doing what I love, and I do not take it for granted.

December 2024

On a rainy November day in North Idaho, the dark encroaching early, I find myself thinking about what I call the "Gucci Factor" — the human tendency to distrust one's own assessment of value and wait for external validation. I apply this with characteristic directness to collecting art: a banana taped to a wall has a lot more to do with marketing than art, while well-executed work with genuine skill, complex color, and emotional resonance is something else entirely. I believe in supporting the living artist — Van Gogh died penniless while his paintings are now priceless. My argument is not commercial; it's almost moral: trust your own eye, and collect what moves you.

November 2024

I'm writing from a fall I haven't fully been able to inhabit — a year of chaos and change that has left me feeling a bit cheated by the seasons. I watch my teenagers shift between moody turbulence and glimpses of the people they are becoming, and find in that a small metaphor for winter itself: cold and difficult, but with transformations underway. My studio is still being rebuilt. Hanging my work at a local gallery felt, I realized, like creating a painting — playing with space, with light, with how things relate to each other. The desire to paint is almost physical. I need it the way other people need air.

October 2024

The amber light of late autumn in Idaho arrives, and it always teaches me something: how important it is for our sanity to stop, take notice, and be grateful. This is not a platitude for me — it is the animating principle behind my work. I confess this year has been too cluttered to enjoy the seasons as fully as I would like, and I feel the loss. But I see winter as potential: cozy nesting, creative work, the studio restored to order. I'll close with a gentle plea: try, like oil in a salad dressing, to float above the vinegar. People are so divided right now. We all just need to be kinder and more empathetic, both to ourselves and to others.

September 2024

Back after a summer of technical difficulties and too many shows. The Idaho Panhandle is glorious in fall and I feel a strong urge to paint — the impulse has always been this way: the season turning, the light changing, and the work scrambling to get out of my head and onto canvas. I've been to many beautiful places this summer, and the images are piling up inside me, waiting.

May 2024

I've completed a large desert commission for collectors in Arizona — one of my strongest desert pieces, I believe — and I find deep pleasure in the collaborative nature of commission work: incorporating specific wants and needs into something that carries special meaning. I've been thinking about the permanence of good art against the disposability of so much modern decor, and about the archival quality of giclée prints now produced on a new wider-format printer. The inks are pigmented and designed to last a century or more — a quiet parallel to the paintings themselves. Beauty, I believe, should be built to last.

April 2024

I think of art as a luxury — I acknowledge that freely, technically unnecessary — yet I insist on its deeper necessity: it is one of the things that enriches our lives, providing beauty and hope in a world that can otherwise be pretty bleak. The analogy extends to food and architecture: we survive on the plain version, but the artful version transforms life. A well-chosen work can transcend trends and become an heirloom, like a piece of good jewelry. My own goal is to distill a place down to its poetry — to say more with less. I'm home for two months, inspired by longer days and the bulbs I planted last fall just beginning to push through.

March 2024

A dear friend has just gone into hospice and died, and I'm writing from that place of acute awareness. It certainly makes you think about how precious life is, and how important it is to see the beauty in every day. I don't traffic in false comfort — life isn't fair, and I don't expect it to be. But the magic that actually works is in noticing beauty. Even on the bleakest day there is always something: the pattern of light and shadow on a wall, or the shape of a tree branch against the sky. Being an artist means training yourself to see these things and then striving to bring them to others — a skill that can be forgotten if we get too lost in screens.

February 2024

I've just returned from the Central Coast of California, tromping through hill and dale at dawn in my pajamas to catch the light — which was just so beautiful, and so different each day. From coastal range dirt roads to vineyards to cacti and oaks, I absorbed it all with a hunger I can only describe as pure inspiration. I'm excited about the printing work now being done in-house: capturing my complex colors at high resolution, I have to say, is more difficult than me just mixing the colors and whacking them on a canvas — and that says everything about the relationship between craft and its reproduction.

January 2024

Writing from a spontaneous trip to the Central Coast of California — a last-minute decision that restored my sanity almost immediately — I've been thinking about what it means to be in a place before you try to capture it. The light on the coast is extraordinary, and I filled my lungs with it. I'm grateful to collectors who commissioned work in December; delivering the finished pieces felt like being able to breathe again. What I love most: finding the inspiration in the places people hold in their hearts, and then turning a photograph or two into poetry of place.

November 2023

A dreary November day in North Idaho, the world's news weighing on me. I believe it simply: beauty can help us cope. I hope my work continues to make people happy in spite of everything — an antidote of sorts. The desert landscapes I love to paint feel almost like doing a still life: precise, layered, compelling. The desire to paint is strong and almost urgent; I call it cathartic. Two beautiful commissions are nearly finished, and I cannot wait to get back to the easel.

October 2023

Writing from the edge of fall, when I feel the pull of the season most intensely — and the underlying urgency of impending winter. I have masses of bulbs to plant and paintings I want to get done. The colors are changing, and I will not be able to keep myself from the canvas much longer. Autumn inspires me more than almost any other season: the quality of the light, the particular colors, the sense of things being gathered in.

September 2023

September brings a mix of sadness at summer's end and genuine love for autumn. I have new pieces from Sun Valley to share — the light there is something I love intensely. I have a commission I'm especially pleased with; I almost wish I could keep it. I've set an easel on the back porch of the studio — the afternoon light is stunning, and it's been waiting there all summer. If only there were more hours in a day.

August 2023

I've been meditating on the difference between arrogance and confidence. Having spent a lifetime deliberately staying humble, I notice now a quiet sense of assurance creeping in — a deep-seated confidence in the value of what I do. I compare the mature painter to a practiced surgeon: it has so much more to do with the practice and knowledge behind his hands than the minutes ticking on the clock. A painting from a mature artist is the sum of a lifetime of experience. When I sit at the easel, I know I have the vocabulary to say what I want to say — and sometimes, something beyond what I imagined happens.

July 2023

News that Klimt's last painting is expected to sell for $80 million prompted me to think about the nature of value in art. Paint and canvas are not inherently valuable — what transforms them is the capturing of something irreplaceable: a fleeting moment, a unique voice, a hand that can never be recreated. I believe good art, chosen wisely, can hold its value for generations — not as a financial scheme, but because it evokes emotion, has complex color, and carries a timelessness. My checklist for a lasting work: a unique voice, a recognizable body of work, something created with heart rather than produced as a schtick.

June 2023

I'm writing from the hammock chair under my trees, looking out at Japanese iris that look to me like butterflies, a painting already forming in my mind. I'm working on a triptych commission depicting the changing seasons — the concept nearly complete in my imagination before I touch canvas. I need time to slow down to create the kind of art I want to create, and I feel that balance keenly. I'm pleased with the quality of the new paper prints — gorgeous, saturated color with a velvety matte finish designed to last a hundred years or more.

May 2023

The garden has consumed me entirely — a new asparagus bed, baby goats, trees, flowers — and I acknowledge needing to return to the studio. My irises are spectacular and the peonies about to open, and I want to paint them with an urgency that feels almost physical. I'm a painter who is also a gardener, and both impulses are competing fiercely for my time. The lesson I keep drawing: creating something — in any form — is what feeds me. I will not be able to stay away from the easel much longer.

March 2023

I've been reflecting on the rare fortune of having a profession that gets continually better with age. Unlike performance arts that favor youth, when you're at the easel, the crows' feet that start appearing are irrelevant, and usually just translate into better art. I hope to still be painting when I am old and decrepit. I've been playing with magpie collections in the studio — scraps of experiment that suddenly become applicable to new work — and I find something profound in art's relationship to time: creating something that will outlast your own lifespan is, I think, an interesting thing to live with.

February 2023

I've been thinking about creativity lately — my conviction that every baby is born with it, and that modern life, with its screens and endless distraction, makes it too easy to forget. I think of my grandmother, who taught me to knit: we'd knit watching television, we'd knit while visiting. There is something in the rhythm of needles — as in painting — that is deeply therapeutic, a kind of moving meditation. I believe creating enriches joy and makes the world better, and that every act of making something is a form of problem-solving. It is so important to grasp the beauty of life and not get sucked in by the ugliness.

January 2023

I've been painting through the winter, completing some challenging commissions, and I find myself genuinely struck by gratitude for what I do. Art is technically a luxury — I'm clear-eyed about that — but I believe it brings a sense of peace that we seem to need more each day. I train myself to capture the essence of what I see and distill it, so others can feel what I feel standing in front of it. Beauty in the natural world soothes us in a way few other things can. Color is therapeutic. I have so much I want to get on canvas before spring pulls me outdoors.

November 2022

I'm staying home this fall while the Southwest shows go on without me. Looking out the studio window at the iris beds I've been planting, I feel a quiet satisfaction — the garden is a painting in progress too. My children are turning into teenagers before my eyes, and I need to be home more for that. Some days I wish I had a pair of Ruby Slippers to be everywhere at once. But being here matters. The studio is just outside. The work will get done.

October 2022

I launched my print program this month, and I want to be honest about what giclées are and aren't. They're reproductions — beautifully executed ones, archivally printed with pigmented inks designed to last a century, but reproductions nonetheless. For those who cannot afford an original, a beautiful print that brings color and warmth into a room is a genuine good — and I envision hospitals, nursing homes, and college students being able to live with my work. The beauty should be available to everyone. And if you want the real thing, I always say: buy a smaller original.

September 2022

I'm writing from the garden — mulching, weeding, thinking. I've been meditating on the unfairness of life and always come back to the same conclusion: gratitude is the antidote. I read a book years ago — "The Girl in Hyacinth Blue" by Susan Vreeland — about how a fictional Vermeer painting affected lives over centuries, and it struck a chord I've never forgotten: when I paint, there is always the hope in the back of my mind that I can bring beauty to people's lives even after I'm gone. Life is tragically brief. It is important to grasp the beauty of it and not get sucked in by the ugliness.

August 2022

I'm very proud of my children's creative work this month — my daughter Anya's acrylic paintings are really stunning, and completely her own voice, and my son Aiden's wire-wrapped jewelry in sterling and gemstones is beautiful. The occasion leads me to articulate why I believe encouraging the arts matters beyond art itself: it teaches thinking outside the box, creative problem-solving, and the communication of aesthetics in tangible form. I honestly think that creativity is as important as understanding math and science. Art really could be everywhere, and beauty feeds the human soul.

July 2022

A thoughtful man at a summer festival — intelligent, honest, not formally educated about art — asked me whether art is a good investment given the state of the economy. My answer was nuanced. Financially? Probably not. But consider this: the Nazis looted art as zealously as they looted gold, because they understood that something made by a specific human hand in a specific historical moment cannot be recreated. Carefully chosen original art is a wise investment not as financial strategy but as life enrichment — something that gives pleasure for a lifetime and can be handed down. Beauty feeds our souls, and we need that, too.

June 2022

A spare note from a strange, cold summer in the Pacific Northwest — lots going on, some good, some not, life, right? I have beautiful new desert pieces to share, and genuine excitement about the sunshine finally arriving after months of grey. I miss my people and look forward to seeing many of you in person this fall.

April 2022

One of the things I love about the show circuit is seeing different landscapes — each with its own palette, its own quality of light. I can't fully depict a place until I've filled my lungs with its air and wriggled my toes in its earth. At home in spring I'm planting bare-root trees and laying out the property like a composition — imagining foreground and background, moving stakes around for the best angles. I truly understand now why Monet was so obsessed by his garden. I've also become deeply addicted to sourdough — a friend gave me a starter — and I find in it another creative medium entirely.

March 2022

Just back from the desert, slightly sunburned and full of new photographs from Joshua Tree and the surrounding oases. There is a large commission waiting in the studio and I cannot wait to get back to it — I love the immense pieces, the feeling of being truly immersed. The shows went beautifully despite the high winds. Returning to a landscape I love never loses its charge. The warmth of the Southwest emanates off my easel all winter, and now I've gone and filled my lungs with it again.

February 2022

Deep winter in North Idaho, working on new desert paintings — the warmth of the Sonoran light radiating off the canvas even in the cold. The balance of painting and family life is always real; the work waits patiently and I return to it when I can. The light I find in the Southwest is something I want to keep translating for people who live nowhere near it — there is a generosity in that, I think, that satisfies me. The winter is long. The work sustains me.

January 2022

The new year arrives and I find gratitude more deliberate than in easier times — difficulty has a way of clarifying what matters. I'm painting in a tidy studio — finally — and working on commissions I'm genuinely pleased with. One recent piece incorporated hay bales to represent each member of a collector's family, color-tweaked for the room it would live in; I find deep satisfaction in that kind of collaboration. My wish for all of you: a lot of joy and peace, and the time to appreciate the beauty amidst the chaos.

December 2021

The full moon on the snow this month has been breathtaking — it keeps pulling me outside to stand in the cold and look. I've completed commissions I'm very excited about, and nothing quite compares to delivering a painting and watching someone's face change when they see it in its home. I always think of it a little like finding the right family for a puppy: when the fit is right, it's simply joyful. I'm in the middle of a cabin renovation with a boho gypsy theme, and find the laying-out and design of it not entirely unlike one of my large paintings. Even in a full life's chaos, I am painting.

November 2021

I love fall most of all — the beautiful colors, the crisp air, the light that makes me want to paint like a mad woman. My tamaracks are depositing a golden carpet of needles and the blueberry bushes look like burning bushes. I've been to Glacier National Park and want to paint it. My giant sunflower painting is drying on the studio wall and makes me very happy. I plan to plant twice as many sunflowers next year and paint a whole series. My profession has trained me to edit what I focus on, and purposefully surrounding myself with color and beauty makes things better.

October 2021

I'm painting a square canvas of sunflowers and want to do a large one — just for myself, a break from commissions. I find sunflowers interesting to paint: they can be pretty trite if you don't capture their joy, and so incredibly moving if you do. The technical challenge of drying thick oil paint in the coming cold, the blazing wall of them still in the garden, the particular quiet of autumn — all of it feeds the work. I've also been making headway on my commission pile in the evenings, and the rhythm of it — studio time earned — feels right.

September 2021

I've just completed a 7-by-7-foot commission — my largest painting ever — for collectors in Whitefish, Montana. I loved every minute of it, and while my wrists are still recovering, I would do another that size immediately. The scale brought something new to my process: being truly monumental changes how you inhabit a painting. I'm glad to be back in the show season rhythm, and looking forward to the Teddy Bear sunflowers I want to paint before summer ends. There is a painting screaming to get out of my head, and I keep wishing for garden gnomes to come harvest for me so I can just paint.

August 2021

I've been thinking about the relationship between an artist and an audience. Great chefs don't create ten-course meals just to eat them alone in the kitchen — creativity is sparked by sharing and creating something memorable. I feel honored and grateful when my pieces become part of people's lives. Watching art history documentaries in French while I paint, I've been meditating on art's importance — so much of what was once created by human hands no longer is, which makes it almost more valuable today. I would paint regardless, because I need to. But being able to share it is the gift.

July 2021

It has been a heat-soaked, time-blurred midsummer. I've painted a large 60x60 and a sunflower piece I'm in love with — I want to do a larger version in turquoise, to capture my Teddy Bear sunflowers that are just coming in. They will line the whole back of the garden, and I'm already imagining the paintings. The studio is full of life: puppies resting by the easel, corn up to my shoulders, the whole summer compressed into a few weeks that feel like days. The heat has melted my brain. I will paint through it anyway.

June 2021

I've been reflecting on the strange process of re-entering a world of shows after so long at home. They remind me of traveling circuses — incredible venues that spring up overnight and disappear by weekend's end — and I feel genuine affection for what that communal effort makes possible. I'm working on a large macro-poppy commission and thinking about the urgency of painting flowers from life: you really have to get right on it, because you can easily miss the bloom. This, I sometimes think, is a metaphor for many things. The summer feels wide open, and I'm glad.

April/May 2021

I've spent the spring designing my property as I would a painting: moving things around for balance, imagining foreground and background, working with a five-acre canvas I find endlessly compelling. I rescued an entire garden from a condemned assisted living facility in Spokane — plants that would have been bulldozed — and spent weeks transplanting them. I can't wait to see the colors as they bloom. Despite the outdoor work and many other distractions, painting remains my deepest creative outlet — the one I always return to, the one that still surprises me.

March 2021

I'm writing from a lakeside condo gifted to me by a dear friend — I ran home after the first day to get my paints, unable to resist. I've been doing plein air painting for the first time in years, frenetically trying to capture the view before the light changes. The sky is a golden peachy blue now, which only makes sense if you're sitting in front of it. Painting from life — with the real thing before me — gives me colors and nuances that reference photos simply can't match. The water is beginning to blush, the mountains kissed with pink. What a beautiful world we live in.

February 2021

I'm painting and planning — a studio addition, a cabin, an upcoming print program — and I'm in a groove. I want to find the right home for my work in the most literal sense: pairing paintings with the walls and rooms that need them. I need to paint to feel like myself, and I am finally doing it. An exceptionally mild February has lifted my spirits, and I find in the gentle warmth something like permission: to slow down, to look carefully, to put what I see on canvas before the world speeds up again.

January 2021

Starting a new year with cautious hope. I've been painting a lot and I'm excited — there are photographs of Schweitzer Mountain in summer that need to become paintings. I've been looking at the work of the Group of Seven — often compared to my own — and find Tom Thomson in particular deeply inspirational. The pandemic has been a kind of enforced stillness, and I've tried to turn it toward something useful: the world will open again, and in the meantime, I'm creating as much beauty as I can. I miss my people. I want to give everyone a huge hug when this is over.

December 2020

I've just returned from delivering two large commissions to their Arizona collectors, and the experience moved me deeply: seeing the paintings in the spaces they were designed for, watching the faces of the people who commissioned them. I am not clueless as to how very fortunate I am to do what I love and to see the joy it brings to others. Something occurred to me: even great authors don't get to watch their readers' faces as they read. I can. That privilege is not lost on me. There are so many things we can't control — but we can control how we react to them, and that is an empowering thought.

November 2020

I've been making deliveries to Arizona collectors and thinking about how much I love the Sonoran Desert — its sunsets are among the best in the world, I believe. I've also been thinking about the therapeutic value of art in difficult times: sitting and contemplating something beautiful with a cup of tea or a glass of wine is pretty darn therapeutic. I encourage you to feather your nests, to make your homes warm and embracing. And I'll close with something I return to often: there's so much we can't control, but we can always control our reactions to it.

October 2020

I cannot get to the studio as much as I want — the fall harvest, the garden, the rearranging. But I wake in the night with clear images of paintings I want to make. I really need to be in the studio. I'm grateful to collectors who make my work sustainable, and I think often about what the pandemic's restrictions have taken from my normal rhythms. I wish all of you could just come hang out in the studio and paint with me. The studio is where the world makes sense.

September 2020

I've been reflecting on what the pandemic has unexpectedly revealed: gratitude. The outdoor shows that are happening feel safer and more generous in spirit — artists and collectors alike simply happy to be out doing what they love. I notice a drastic downturn in prima donna behavior and a prevailing sense of gratitude that precludes the silliness people get sucked into when they lose that sense. Maybe something we can all hang onto after all this craziness dissipates. What I actually need has become very clear: meaningful contact with people, the creation of beauty, and the act of sharing both.

July 2020

I'm excited to be showing work again after months at home — and seeing people's reactions to new paintings feels a little like harvesting from my garden. The inspiration is reciprocal: I need the feedback, and the connection. I've been painting and working on the studio addition, playing with faux finishes and textures, dreaming of open studio shows and workshops. The garden is blooming. I wore actual shoes for the first time in months — and I'm ready to be back in the world.

June 2020

In lockdown, I've found unexpected clarity. I'm painting more, gardening more, and noticing how being an artist has prepared me for exactly this kind of disruption: creative people can always figure things out. I'm moved by the racial unrest and the pandemic and wish I could do something to make everything better — but I can at least contribute to the beauty. Planning the outdoor space uses the same language as painting: it's like creating a landscape you can walk into. The garden is my laboratory and my canvas both. Art and life, for me, are not separate.

November 2019

The year has been full, and painful in ways I want to name directly: I lost two dear friends to cancer about a week apart. Life just has to slow down a bit around events like that. I needed time to cry, be supportive, and make soup. I'm working hard on commissions and enjoying the collaborative process — the beautiful compositions that result from working closely with collectors to make something personal. And I'm moved when collectors come back after purchasing work decades ago, still treasuring their pieces. It means so much to me to hear those kinds of stories.

October 2019

October is here with a vengeance — we had snow and had to pick the apples before they froze. I've been working very hard on commissions and am feeling a bit run down, plus there's a ton of produce to deal with. Painting and tending the land compete for the same hours, and sometimes the land wins. But the commission pile is real and the work is meaningful — turning a collector's favorite place into something they can live with every day remains one of the most satisfying things I do.

September 2019

I can't believe it's September — I actually haven't slowed down yet, but am really looking forward to doing so. My feral garden has a lot of produce in it, and I'm itching to tame it this fall before putting it to bed; the garlic looks amazing, there's a great fruit crop coming, and we now have a root cellar to put it all in. The kids are back in school, which will give me more time to paint. I have two large new pieces I'm excited about — canvases I've had in my head for a while — and I can't wait to get them into the world.

August 2019

August means three shows, and I find in that pressure something useful — it gets things done. I've completed a large 48x72 mountain scene I'm really loving. My Bend, Oregon show is my favorite of the year: a park-like setting along the Deschutes River, well-organized, the work outstanding, the atmosphere almost like a vacation even with smoke in the air. Three shows in a single month requires some logistics — getting in touch with my German side — but the paintings are what matter, and I'm proud of the new work.

July 2019

I spent a week doing play projects — mixed media techniques with oils — and found it renewed me. The work that emerged from the experiment excited me in ways I did not anticipate. Ann Arbor reminds me of my time in Provence, and the show there was beautifully organized with exceptional artwork throughout. I've moved an addition onto my property — a whole new courtyard, European in feeling. Life is abundant and a little chaotic, and I love it. The play, I've always found, feeds the serious work.

June 2019

A short letter accompanying a new painting of the Washington coast — not a particular place, but more a distillation of the area. That phrase captures my practice exactly: I am not a topographer. I find the essential quality of a landscape and render that. The garden is finally in, and I feel secure enough in that fact to return to the studio. This coast painting is a good example of what I'm always after: the feeling of a place, not a record of it.

May 2019

I've just returned from the Art Institute in Chicago — seeing the Van Goghs and Cézannes has inspired me deeply. I want to paint sunflowers in new varieties I've found; I want to do figurative work. Never enough time in the day, I fear. I found a garden shed on Craigslist, positioned at the end of the garden path in the midst of the raspberries — it looks, inside and out, like a little Gypsy wagon, which is exactly what I always wanted there. I plan to sleep there all summer listening to the rain on the rusted metal roof. The trip to Chicago reminded me that great art is always ahead of you — and always worth chasing.

April 2019

Heading into the spring show season with the energy of a beginning: the studio producing new work, my best friend now living nearby and painting alongside me, laughter and a private joke language we developed traveling together that had a stuffy gentleman in a German airport muttering about "happy pills." I'm excited about Chicago later in the month — both for the show and for a chance to see the Art Institute. I have two new goats, Arabella and Lilli-Mae, and am watching the spring unfold with genuine pleasure. The play, I've always found, feeds the serious work. Everything is alive and abundant.