Statement
I am a botanical artist with a contemporary point of view. I love plants and I love to draw, so here I am, decades into a life of botanical art. There are 400,000 species of plants on the earth today, every one of them beckoning with a compelling shape, size, color or story.
I am fascinated, in this “Green” era, by the ironic disconnect between people and the plants that feed, clothe, shelter, heal and sustain us. In my work, I direct attention back to our relationship with the botanical realm. I offer the reminder that we need plants more than they need us.
The challenge that keeps me coming back to the garden is simple: Look at an ordinary plant and see something new, then make it extraordinary with color or texture or context. Having trained in the classical tradition of botanical illustration, I am a slave to scientific accuracy and detail. Living in the 21st century, I have modern tools and materials to keep the process new. I work primarily in colored pencil, often combined with graphite, pastel, and a variety of media and grounds.
From tundra to tropics and all the deserts, swamps, prairies and backyards in-between, I will be out there . . . looking for the next plant to draw and the next story to tell.
I am fascinated, in this “Green” era, by the ironic disconnect between people and the plants that feed, clothe, shelter, heal and sustain us. In my work, I direct attention back to our relationship with the botanical realm. I offer the reminder that we need plants more than they need us.
The challenge that keeps me coming back to the garden is simple: Look at an ordinary plant and see something new, then make it extraordinary with color or texture or context. Having trained in the classical tradition of botanical illustration, I am a slave to scientific accuracy and detail. Living in the 21st century, I have modern tools and materials to keep the process new. I work primarily in colored pencil, often combined with graphite, pastel, and a variety of media and grounds.
From tundra to tropics and all the deserts, swamps, prairies and backyards in-between, I will be out there . . . looking for the next plant to draw and the next story to tell.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. – Proust
About Me
Paris, 2022
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I grew up in Colorado and have always been inclined to draw and rearrange everything in my path. I formalized my study of Art and Art History at Colorado College and the University of Exeter, England.
In 1990 I discovered Botanical Illustration at the Denver Botanic Gardens and never looked back. I received a Certificate of Merit from the program in 1991 and was named Student of the Year in 1992. I have mounted numerous solo and group exhibits, and illustrated gardening books, field guides, catalogs, seed packets, product labels and even coloring books. I was an instructor in the School of Botanical Art and Illustration at the Denver Botanic Gardens from1998 until my retirement in 2020. I teach online at Craftsy.com and Wondrium.com, as well as workshops in the U.S. and abroad. I am affiliated with SPARK Gallery in Denver, Colorado . I exhibit locally, nationally and internationally. My award-winning work is included in books and in collections at the State Museum of New York in Albany, NY and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh, PA, as well as many private collections. |