A four-year posting of her father to Rome in the early 1960’s resulted in much exposure to the grand architecture of palazzos and villas; ancient ruins and the fabric of history; museums; and, art. She graduated from the University of California, Riverside, and made Tustin in southern California her home.
Essentially self-taught, she was always drawing, and was encouraged by her artistic mother to appreciate art. Fortunate enough to have spent portions of her childhood in the cities and the countryside of Italy, this inspired her to recapture the beauty and energy of those memories. However, as an adult the demands of career and family made it difficult to do much art.
After retirement, she was invited to learn in Tuscany in the studio of an Italian maestro, Bruno di Maio, for 4-5 weeks twice a year from September, 2016 to May, 2019. There she learned the techniques of oil painting. In the fall of 2019, she encountered a local pastel artist, Dori Dewberry, who teaches at a local community college. Enrolling in the class, the artist was fascinated by the differences between the mediums of pastel and oil painting. Regardless of the medium, exploring techniques to increase her creativity inspires her.
Taking many photographs, she pays attention to colors and composition to interpret through paint, capturing the lyrical sense of color and essence of the scene. She hopes that the viewer is transported from this reality into another world, even if only briefly.
Statement:
I can say that art is in my DNA. My maternal great-grandmother was an artist and studied under a famous Florentine portrait artist, Michele Gordigiani. Her granddaughter, my mother, was also an artist, drawing and painting for years but with no formal training. Except for the exposure to art one normally receives in high school, I had only taken a college course in etching. Nevertheless, I always liked to draw with pencil or ink. I am always taking pictures, framing a scene and capturing it with a camera. I have continued to progress in the techniques of using both oil and pastel.
