ARTIST STATEMENT

One day a bright red line formed a rose over a green plain, and I saw it was the dress my mother sewed for me when I was four. That’s when I knew I carry a treasure house with me. From a time before I had words, I lived with the Japanese things my mother brought into our little Texas house. Tea cups, brocades, carved rosewood, a big brass incense burner. Without knowing it, I absorbed all their curves and glimmers. I never gave it a thought. But that day I recognized my meandering circles were the vents in her ginger jars. My shimmering golds were the brass lamps she polished on the dining room table. I knew I was painting for comfort, to soothe something, to return to a time when the world felt safe and there was magic in the woods. (There is still magic in the woods, though.) 

Moon, peony, stream and vine float back to me in color washes, micaceous paints, startling reds and hushed temple greens. They echo like the deep, granular sound of a bell. What’s gone is still here, and still to come.