Art

“My mother was an artist. She studied painting seriously in college and had a gift with oil, reflecting light as if the images glowed. Even when I was 4 years old and my little brother Dan only two, and with four older children, my mother still painted. She was hired to paint portraits, which were uncanny. I remember her old wooden easel and big thick brushes, her color-stained pallette, her smock.

“I have nothing of her gift, but I do feel the call to be present with image, color and light. It is the universe, the stars and galaxies as they exist in all of us which touches me. Painting is intimate, it is wordless, it is physical. It saves me from my own mind, and teaches me to have fun.

“The masks were creations that later become spirits. Or, now that I think of it, it is probably more true to say that they were spirits who later became clay, paint and wood. Each of these pieces holds a soul which I hold dear.”