As an artist I am concerned with creating a contrast of opposing elements in my work. Soft floral forms are juxtaposed with hard-edged abstract areas and large spaces with minutely-scaled pattern. The paintings are shamelessly decorative in their use of ornament and pattern. I try to suggest the illusion of real space within an abstract composition by overlapping patterned areas and overlaying portions of one form over another. In my mixed media drawings, I manipulate space by pushing and pulling areas of color and decoration that I draw and paint.

Massive inorganic vessel shapes or women’s hand fans with their hard edges and wide areas of color are set up against passages of abstract floral groupings and planes of detailed patterns. These paintings are visually organized in an almost musical fashion. Sections of washed and brushed color meet, connect, and stop abruptly, before changing to an entirely different portion of the work like riffs in a jazz composition. The separate painted areas of each of my compositions enunciate and restate themes from portion to portion. The abstract paintings have always hinted at a reality that never existed as intersecting planes of pattern shade and shadow each other to suggest traditional realistic space and depth.

The watercolor medium has provided me with the luminous and intense paint necessary to execute my sense of color and design ideas. All densely painted areas are made up of multiple layers of watercolor washes which can be set down ten to thirty times to create the depth of color that the glazing requires. The drawings have a fool-the-eye quality since the viewer isn’t sure what is painted, drawn or collaged.

The general composition and color arrangements are laid out in advance. The designs are hand-drawn and hand-painted without the aid of an airbrush or any mechanical methods. No masking or taping of any kind are used to separate the different painted areas—these are created freehand. My formal graduate level training was in printmaking and my works in watercolor painting tends to suggest the precise quality of a “printerly” painting.