Town: Leesburg
Medium: Mixed-media painting and clay.
Describe your style: Eclectic-abstract-anthropomorphic — with a minimum of two out of three in the same piece. I like strong shapes and complex surfaces with allusions to landscape and life forms.
Training or influences: University classes, informal workshops and retreats. I am very much influenced by the past and what I like to think of as the primal subconscious. Art should reflect its Paleolithic origins.
How long have you been an artist? Forever. I began showing in the fiber arts and was a resident studio artist in the SONO gallery in Brookfield, Conn. I have worked in metal, marble and stone, but clay and I are most compatible. I cannot shake a lifelong compulsion to paint anything that doesn’t run away.
What made you become an artist? I bumped into art at a very early age and it just felt good.
When I’m not making art, I’m probably: Trying to upgrade my 5K run to a 10K competitive.
Best thing to bribe me with: Art supplies and art or art history books. I’m a junkie.
One thing always in my refrigerator: Wine, pita and hummus.
Pet peeve: At art shows, I would like more people to talk to me about my art. Some people just glance surreptitiously at my art and skulk away. Artists don’t get out much and are usually starved for conversation.
People think artists are eccentric. Are you? Absolutely. It’s one of my more endearing qualities.
What would improve the art scene in Lake County? More informal art in park venues like the ones I got to know and love in San Francisco and New Orleans.
Where can people see your work? Two-dimensional work at La Galleria in The Villages, Leesburg City Hall in March and the Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora in April and May. My three-dimensional work is on display at the Florida Thoroughbred Owners Association in Ocala and I will show it at the Leesburg Fine Arts Festival March 8-9.
