NEW WORK: Spring & Summer 2020

As our challenging spring and summer unfolded, I found renewed sources of inspiration close to home — in the studio, in the garden, in my daily

three-mile beach walks. These routines were comforting, and they reinforced the preciousness of time.

And so, for this exhibition, I’ve returned to timeless subjects — small boats and water. Many pieces you see are fresh and more expansive treatments of my previous compositions.

I am drawn to painting small boats — their functional structures and the abstract possibilities found in the play of light that surrounds them.

There is no shortage of rowboats on Puget Sound (with “character,” as we say), whether they’re beached, afloat, or existing in some in-between state. Behind their shapes and textures,

their state of repair or disrepair, lies another dimension: These are not mere boats I see; through their owner’s absence, a human story is implicit in each of them. That’s part of the attraction and even mystery.

The energetic, fluid style I have brought to the canvas for these works has made the painting process liberating and the saturated color choices spirit-lifting.

Painting water presents interesting, formal problems: Water has no prevailing visual treatment.

Ideas ebb and flow. Variations are endless.