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I’m all about the color, the brighter the better.

A Bay Area native, born and raised in Mill Valley, I’ve been a painter all my life. My great-grandmother and my father were painters. When I was young they took me with them on their fieldtrips to Diablo, Tamalpais and the Sierra foothills where I painted alongside them. I drew all through my elementary school years, much to the annoyance of my teachers, and toyed with sculpture, ceramics and jewelry in addition to painting in high school. When I entered California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, in 1969 I was definitely a painter, but by the time I graduated in 1973 I had a BFA in industrial design.

 

After eight years in packaging, graphics, and typesetting I fell down the rabbit-hole into the world of magazines and enjoyed a 30-year career as a publication designer and art director. Throughout those years, though I still considered myself a “painter,” there was a long period of time where the only thing I was painting were the walls, shelves and furniture of my home. Non-traditional colors and bizarre textures throughout the house, but it was purely on a personal level. Visitors would look wide-eyed at our home and say, "It's so nice that you involved your children in the decorating..." Hah! The children had nothing to do with it.

 

Upon retiring I realized I missed the adrenalin rush of a magazine deadline and the constant churn of a weekly production cycle. How could I replace that?  I said: “I should start painting again. And I should be painting like it's my job.”

 

When I left painting behind in 1970 I really hadn’t developed my own style. But I’ve always been focused on color and texture. Bright colors that contrast with even brighter colors, colors that compliment, colors that fight, colors that scream, colors that taste good in my mouth. Rarely subtle, never quiet.. Do not look for serenity, calm interludes or places where your eyes can rest in my paintings, that’s what the walls are for.

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