Welcome
to my web site.
I'm an oil painter who usually uses dogs as the subjects of my
paintings. I live in Vermont with my husband, the writer Julian F.
Thompson. We used to share space with our dog Reggie, who inspired me countless times.
A couple Septembers ago we moved to a big old drafty Victorian house Bellows Falls, VT, and
I am still working in a studio that is too cold.
Artist's Bio:
I began to paint when I was a 17 year old high school student, but it was my home life rather than an art class that prompted me to pick up a brush. There were always art supplies in my house, and on a day with nothing better to do I opened my mother's paint box. When the oil touched the canvas, I was hooked.
As an Oberlin College undergraduate, I was influenced by taking art history classes with Ellen Johnson, and the occasional studio course; but I was drawn to science as well and majored in geology. After graduation, and a semester of graduate work in volcanology at the University of Oregon, I took a job as a teacher at an alternative high school, where I taught both art and science classes. Science won out once again, and I made the decision to seek a career as a doctor. Preparation included pre-med classes at Bennington College, where I studied drawing with Sophie Healy. I was accepted at the University of Vermont College of Medicine.
It turned out that medicine was not going to be my life's work. Hospital rounds taught me how important it is to seize the day while healthy, and I chose to leave medicine and dedicate myself to the studio. My course work at UVM might have seemed unrelated to my future as an artist, but it turned out that immersion in anatomy would serve me well.
I have now been painting and exhibiting for 23 years. Most of my compositions have dogs in them, but I don't label myself a "dog painter" in the traditional sense. I would say that I use dogs as a means to an end. My paintings are always narrative pieces, never simply portraits of poodles or pugs. In many ways, the dog is our emotional equivalent and excels in the expression of such feelings as jealousy or remorse. I use dogs to tell stories about relationships and about reactions to environments. We can recognize ourselves in my canine protagonists, and in the cats and bears and birds that also inhabit my work.
I am represented by galleries in Vermont and New Mexico. My paintings have been included in numerous museum shows, such as the Florida National, the Cheekwood National Contemporary Painting Competition, and the Springfield National. I was invited to publish with Wild Apple Graphics and Pomegranate Communications.