External spaces become treasured places when personal and cultural experiences are connected to them. These emotional bonds create feelings of trust, comfort and belonging. Landscape can provide solace and a sense of place. Often we project onto places the stories we keep close about where we belong. My paintings are references to those places: the Wisconsin river environment of my childhood; annual summer visits spent on a magnificent mountain-fed lake in northern Idaho; and the rivers, streams and lakes of Minnesota.
These painted images provide fragmented information which in turn are transformed into something mysterious, almost fabricated. This allows the viewer to fill in the blanks. The use of color, light, shadow, branches, boats, houses and reflections mirror places imbued with meaning and memories of gathering, relationship, joy, solitude, loss, love and home.