A Sense of Place

My paintings approach nature in two different ways:  through specific details of a particular landscape, and by expressing the visceral experience of simply being in that place. 

I’m describing the details of my hikes through nature and creating a narrative about the location.  What plants are in front of others? Where does the land end?  Where do the trees or foliage or sky begin?  Where does the light comes from?   I’m painting the visible landscape.

I’m also portraying the pure, experiential quality of being in a particular place, of being in the present moment, of being there as an essential, physical and spirit-based experience. 

Place and repetition are a vital part of my work.  My husband and I have been going to Sweden every summer for the past 25 years.  Each time, as I paint,  I go deeper in my understanding of place.  The same thing holds true for my daily nature walks in the Bay Area.  There’s a sense of my own history in these places that’s important to me.  Being in the Swedish countryside over and over again, and walking daily on trails at home, connects me to these places visually, physically, personally and temporally.  Returning to a landscape, and knowing more with each visit, enriches the work and the experience. 

These ways of working require that I know exactly what I’m doing, and that I let go to be in the very moment with the felt response to place.   I describe a particular place and also relate what happens in me when I’m there.  There’s a distillation of the specific work into the felt work like water to vapor.  

Some of the pieces I made in Sweden this summer are painted directly from looking.  One of these is the view out my little bedroom window.   Another is of the early morning light coming over the tops of the hills and onto our trees before spilling into the meadow behind the house.  Two of them are painted directly from photographs I took from a hike over the hills to the sea.  And others were painted inside in response to those first two.  I’m painting what I see.  And I’m pulling from the visible landscape to help me paint my internal landscape.