Landscapes are the place where we can get in touch with our oneness to the greater part of the universe. I paint them, sometimes real, sometimes imagined, because it stills my mind and allows me to connect with who I essentially am (and it’s fun). I love color and texture; painting with bees wax allows me to experiment with both.

I often come to the canvas with something in mind and the wax dictates something very different, but THAT is the very essence of creativity – chaos to make you change in a profound way. I liken it to an adrenaline rush; only I’m not swinging from a thin rope a mile above a rushing river!

I was formally trained as a graphic designer at the Rhode Island School of Design. My professional career began in television working on program branding, advertising and on-air graphics. I transitioned to the web on the cusp of its marketing birth and have been there ever since.

My love affair with encaustics began at a dinner party. Come to think of it, it really began at the age of seven when I watched the janitor at my elementary school burn paper in a barrel. At the end of the day as the other kids ran off to play, I would take up my position and stand mesmerized in front of the fire. Fast forward to the dinner party some thirty-five years later, when I was locked into a state of oneness with the dinner candles, making tiny pods from the drippings on my thumb, my dinner guest, a fellow artist said, “You should paint with beeswax”. I’d never heard of it and began searching for classes, found one, bought all the stuff and haven’t stopped since.

The process of encaustics is that all the paints are infused in bees wax; therefore, they must be melted in order to paint. All the tools, brushes, torches, air guns and flat irons are hot (fire!) and so the process moves very quickly. As soon as the brush/paint moves away from the heated palette it begins to cool, so the artist must act decisively with no time to process through the intellect. It’s exciting; it’s tactile, and the color is bright and bold. It can be formed, objects can be placed into it and if you mess up, you can scrape it all away and start again.

Calm and peaceful, wild and dangerous, like the inner journey, the landscape is a wonderful portrait of the opposites that exist within us all. I invite you to look through my work, and contact me if you have questions or see something that interests you.