Statement/RESUME

I create a synthetic narrative. My tools to make visual stories are shape, color and line.  Imagery comes from my environment, from my experiences.   For example, in bound notebooks I draw from nature. Each summer I choose one plant to draw, once it was the cherry tomato plant; I was borrowing from Picasso. How poignant those thirty-some paintings are of the only plant in his wartime studio in Paris, a dying tomato plant telling his story. Although I sat observing tomato plant while drawing, or lettuce going to seed or this year the thorny Ragusa rose, the drawings only begin with some reality, then they spin off into their own non-reality towards a metaphor sometimes for something else that is going on in my life.  

My paintings pick up where the drawings end. Larger and with color added my subject matter widens to encompass the environment –the limitations of the short growing season, the grey rain clouds and the short bursts of sunshine.

I have a life-long quest to see historic paintings, specifically flat wall paintings in situ; this is probably fueled by my distrust for all those art history slide shows in art school. My most recent quest for historic examples was my grant time spent in France looking at 12th century church frescos. This love affair with French Romanesque paintings began when I was a teenager and bought a used book French Romanese Paintings with colored illustrations. 


Thanks to the grant, at age 70 I got to see them first hand. They were thrilling. Chapel walls were completely covered with long registers broken up into story units and these were stacked up to the ceiling in two or three registers. Each church had a distinctive style, but all were 12-century works and executed in very limited palettes. I did two series of paintings specifically about the frescoes, one about the abduction of Saint Foy and the other on the damaged angels in the ancient baptistery in Poitiers.
 Here are some samples below. See more at 

My project to celebrate my 75th year 
is my "Shikishi Project", after the similarly sized paper poem cards from Japan. I am making seventy-five 10” x 10” paintings. Many are based on my drawings of the Rugosa rose, which grow in my roadside garden in Oxford County, Maine.

Click here to see website for this project

 RESUME

, 2018SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Port Authority Bus Terminal - New York City - 2018
Miwa & Alex Gallery – New York City, NY - paintings - 2015                                                                          
Frost Farm Gallery – Oxford, Maine - paintings - 2013                                                                                      
Café Nomad – Norway, Maine - paintings - 2012                                                                                                   
TAI/Exhibits - New York City - paintings and sculpture - 2010                                                         
NYCoo Gallery - New York City - paintings - 2010                                                                                                
Miwa-Alex Gallery, New York City - paintings - 2007  
Spring Studio, New York City - drawings - 2007                                                                     
Greenwich House Pottery, New York City, – ceramics - 2002                                                                       

GROUP EXHIBITIONS 
Art Elevated - New York CIty - 2018
Grant Winners Exhibition - Art Students League - 2017, 2018
Affordable Art Fair – New York City - 2015                                                                                             
Two Person Show – Salem Art Works, Salem, NY - 2014                                                                                   
MaineBookhouse – Oxford, Maine - 2012                                                                                             
Dance on Canvas, Manhattan Borough President’s Office, NY  - 2009                                       
Starbrick Clay National Cup Show, Nelsonville, OH  - 2009                                                              
“Inspired Utility” Exceptional Ceramic Vessels, Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA  - 2006    
“An Extravagance of Salt & Pepper”, Baltimore Clayworks, MD - 2006                                            
“Booked 2”, Pierro Gallery, South Orange, NJ - 2005                                                                      
Tokyo-NY Friendship Ceramic Competition, Tokyo, Japan 2005 
“The Art of Tea”, Lakewood Cultural Center, Lakewood, CO 2001                                                
“National Juried Cup Show” Gallery 138, Kent State University, OH - First Prize  2001              
                                       
EDUCATION
Tyler School of Art – Philadelphia & Rome - MFA   
Carnegie Mellon University – BFA 
Art Students League - studied with Knox Martin, Grace Knowlton, and Bruce Dorfman 

RESIDENCIES / AWARDS   
 Kuniyoshi Grant  
Xavier Gonzalez Grant
​Edward G. McDowell Travel Grant, Art Students League                                                                                  
Hammershlag Scholaraship, Art Students League                                                                                                                                                                             

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Over thirty years experience teaching art and creativity.  Positions have included:
US Peace Corps, Malawi, Africa, Greenwich House Pottery, Goddard College,
92nd Street Y, Creative Pathways – My seminar center for teaching creativity

PUBLICATIONS 
“Studio Potter”, Summer, “Embracing Change”, 2010 
“Lines from the League”, Summer, “In Celebration” 2011 
“Linea”, Spring, Journal of the Art Students League of New York, 2012   
 Art Students League Catalogue 2014-15