and I am flooded with possibilities for paintings. I yearn to capture the essence of what I am seeing and feeling and to share it with others through my art. I usually have a camera, sketchbook or nature journal with me, which allows me to bring home a collection of images and “visual explorations” that I later use in the studio to create my paintings.

Kayaking along the Pictured Rocks shoreline is pure magic. In my kayak I feel the energy of the lake moving under my boat, I am surrounded by her spirit and beauty, and I feel so connected to it, like I am actually part of the lake….. at least for a little while. I feel so privileged to have the opportunity to get up so close to those rock walls, to touch them and study the magnificent array of colors that stain the rock, to poke in and out of the many caves, nooks, and overhangs, to pull my boat up on a ledge or stone strewn beach to explore or just rest and soak up the beauty around me. In “Cave of Many Colors” I tried to capture that magic. This is a spot between Miners Beach and Mosquito Beach, where you can pull up on the ledges and climb over rocks to get this exquisite perspective of the rock overhang and the amazing colors of the mineral stains.

I love the wonderful streaks of turquoise from the copper, as well as all of the other colors, the rich green mosses, the variety of textures in the various rock layers and the greens, blues, and turquoise of the shallow water and deeper pools. This is simply a perspective that you just canʼt get from anything other than a kayak, and I wanted to share it through this painting.

Spring Unfolds

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I also love to discover and share the “intimate landscapes”, those small spaces full of the wondrous detail of nature that are all around us; places that most people step on, walk by and just simply donʼt see. I see them with my artistʼs eyes, and through my art I want to unveil, to call attention, to share, to say to people, “See? Look at this remarkable place! Now go out and look with new eyes!” “Superior Stones” is one of my favorite intimate landscapes, probably because I am so enchanted with our Lake Superior beach stones! A couple of years ago along the beach between Hurricane River and the Au Sable Light Station, lower lake levels had exposed more of the sandstone ledges. They were full of potholes of every shape imaginable, most of which were filled with a delightful collection of beach stones of many colors and sizes. Many reminded me of eggs in a nest! The swirls of tan and red in the sandstone combined with the interesting shapes of the potholes and the collection of rocks trapped in them gave me many images to work from.