One

Original sold

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Years ago I read on a poster – one filled with ideas for living a good life – to pick a piece of fruit from a tree and eat it. How odd that we need to be reminded of this; so many of us are disconnected from where our food comes from. I’m so grateful that I was raised on two different plots of land in Woodacre, California – both planted with fruit trees. Since I can remember this has been my reality – that I could go outside in summer and pick a sweet snack from a tree. Even without fruit I can recognize many kinds of trees from the shapes of their leaves. Since I’m all about connection, this makes me feel right and good.

This was a little Fuji apple growing on a dwarf tree out at my parents – where they still live in Woodacre. This painting came from a photo that jumped out at me because of the pattern of light on the upper edge of the apple. But I had to have my way with the colors. As lovely as the soft greens and pinks are, my color sense is far more vibrant – it’s what I do!

I had just finished Global, my eggplant painting. Its leaves had given me fits to paint. Now another! But once I got through the leaves the apple was so fun to paint and it only took a few hours. It felt like play to loosely brush on the colors, layering pinks over greens – with of course a little cobalt blue on the front edge.

I often start thinking about the possible names of paintings early – sometimes even before I start to paint. This one has not jumped out easily or clearly. There are all kinds of ways to be clever with “apple” – both with common sayings and in its deep and ancient symbolism. But none of that felt right. It’s a simple painting and doesn’t call out for much in its name. I toyed with simply calling it “Apple” – good enough for a technology company. But this one needed to be even simpler. It’s a single apple. Just One. It’s enough.

August 2016 – 22″x22″ – Watercolor on paper

Always

Original Sold

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29″x29″ – $595

22″x22″ – $395

15″x15″ – $195

7.5″x7.5″ – $60

When I was in Healdsburg last September (2014), after setting up, I went to park the truck on a side street a few blocks from the venue.  On the walk back, I came upon a gorgeous Fuyu persimmon tree in someone’s front yard, loaded with fruit.  The next morning I took a break to go take some pictures.  Full of sun, bright green leaves and orange/yellow-orange fruit, none of the pictures I took called to me to be painted.  The next month, I was up there again to lead my first art retreat weekend.  When I was headed out Monday morning, I went to see if I might take more pictures of the tree – I’d not forgotten about it!  It had rained softly Sunday night, and things were all covered with droplets.  This image from that morning was the one that wanted to be painted.  But the background was not exciting – it was the grey of the street beyond the tree.  So I went to work in Photoshop to collage in another image from further back.  I know this makes it not “real” but it’s a much better painting for it!

The “fuzzy background” on this one was really fun to paint – especially the lower right corner. I played with painting wet-next-to-wet and adding in colors that were not really there, more hinted at – purples, blues, pinks.  It was the most fun I’ve had painting one of these backgrounds ever!  I worked on this painting quite sporadically from the start of November. Between teaching some weekends, producing and selling my first calendar, holiday sales events and then family holiday celebrations, it didn’t get much of me.  So, I didn’t finish until the first part of February.

I was lamenting how I started it in the autumn and it was meant to be painted then – it’s a fall painting! Then, it sifted in that it seems the perfect painting to be working on just before Valentine’s Day.  It’s all here:  two, cheek to cheek, still sprinkled with the tears of rain. The name for this painting had not popped out until one of the last nights I worked on it.  Continuing with my intention to find one-word names – if it’s the title of a song, even better – I poked around on iTunes looking up words that were coming to me:  “promise,” “embrace,” “vow.”  They all have songs written about them, but none were it. Then I landed on “Always.”  There are several songs with that title – Bon Jovi has one, and Atlantic Starr, but the one that fit was written by Irving Berlin in 1925 as a gift to his bride-to-be, Ellin.  Here’s Sinatra’s version. It strikes the right note for me. All-ways, in all ways.  The real always of being together and loving each other, one day at a time.

February 2015 – 29″x29″ – Watercolor on paper

Family of Lemons

Original Sold

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22″x22″ – $395

15″x15″ – $195

7.5″x7.5″ – $60

Out in our narrow side yard is a Meyer lemon tree. Planted by Paula Spencer, the previous resident of our house, this tree is indefatigable. There is hardly a time in the 11 years we’ve been here that I’ve gone out there and not found a yellow lemon for whatever I’m cooking or eating. Times when either Joe has pruned it severely or hard frosts have burned its upper branches, I’ve really worried about it, only to have it come back and be more prolific than ever. Several of our close neighbors know they can come in and get one or a few anytime they need to (don’t tell anyone!). This is the side of the house where we keep the trash cans and recycle bins and it’s also where we come and go when we are leaving on foot. I take our dog Bo on a hike nearly every morning and go by this tree. I love that the tree is where it is when the blossoms are blooming when I walk by – the scent is so lovely. I took the photo that became this painting because I was struck by how unusual it is to find blossoms and ripe yellow lemons right in the same branch. Add in beautiful light and interesting leaf shapes and this had to become a painting. Then when I started to draw it, I noticed there are also tiny baby lemons. The name came to me thinking about the last line in “Wild Geese” (the same poem I quote from on the home page of this site): “…announcing your place in the family of things.”

August 2012 – 22″x22″ – Watercolor on paper

Persimmon Sun II

Original Sold

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22″x22″ – $395

15″x15″ – $195

7.5″x7.5″ – $60

Sometimes things get painted because they’re next. I had drawn this months ago when I was in the mood to do another persimmon – again one from my neighbor’s tree down the street. This image came from the same visit as “Persimmon Sun.” I had just finished “Dazzling,” the painting of the two hibiscus flowers and was in Tahoe and didn’t have anything else drawn, I had this with me so I started in on it. I loved making the background – all the circles and abstract shapes. I had fun playing with the shapes and colors. It happened really easily without worrying too much about how much I was reproducing the exact image. This is the third persimmon painting from Jen’s tree – each three years apart. I can see how my style is changing over time – as is life. Jen is no longer living, there is a new family living in her home now with little kids, full of activity. All the while, the tree is still making these beautiful orange fruit and leaves each fall. Things end, things begin and things carry on.

August 2012 – 22″x22″ – Watercolor on paper

Queen Anne Cherries

Original Sold

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I love stone fruit growing from trees – as painting subject matter, it provides me with delight and enchantment. I’d already painted peaches and apricots. Next, I was on the hunt for some cherries on the tree to paint.

It was June 2008 when my friend Brenda called to tell me that people were flocking to the self-pick orchards in Brentwood near where she lived. They were quickly stripping the cherry trees, so if I wanted some pictures of cherries, I’d better get out there quick, she told me.

Life is always so full. The thought of dropping everything and driving an hour and a half each way in who-knows-what kind of traffic, to take photos of cherries made me nuts.

That very evening, as Joe and I walked to the store in town, my eye was caught by color off to the left. I looked over to Jen’s yard, the source of several previous paintings, including the persimmon tree and some Graham Thomas roses that became Blossoming Hope.

The tree RIGHT NEXT to the persimmon tree is a Queen Anne cherry tree, and it was full of shiny red and yellow fruit. Next to that is a Bing cherry tree. Bounty right here in our neighborhood. A walk down to a garden fewer than ten houses away gave me all I the cherries I could ever paint.

This is such a message that life really can be simple and easy – and full of delightful surprises.

Shiny cherries posed the painting challenge on this one. It’s tricky to shift color and keep the surface appearing smooth and continuous. The blues and purples I used in the peach tree leaves in Tropical Peaches gave me the permission to paint blue leaves in this painting too. I love how all the colors came through so bright and clear.

April 2009 – 22″x30″ – Watercolor on paper

Pomegranates, Jacinta’s Garden

Original Sold

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In October 1996, at the end of my half a year in France, I traveled throughout Europe for two weeks with two of my brothers, Matt and Mike. We met my parents on the Croatian Island of Brac, where my grandparents were born.

Brac is a rocky, arid island dotted with olive trees; the water that surrounds it is crystal clear, and life is simpler than ours at home in California. One perfect autumn afternoon we had lunch at my mother’s cousin Jacinta’s home. She cooked us a special meal of potato gnocci with a rich meat sauce.

A stroll out to her back terrace after lunch treated us to the gorgeous view of the sea and the mainland beyond. The tree growing these pomegranates was between the terrace and the view. The view and the tree can be seen in a painting I did a decade later – my self-portrait, Home.

Like the island, painting this one was rocky for me. I was almost never pleased with the results of my painting efforts. I experienced first hand how an artist’s life takes discipline. Though this is an early painting of mine, something in me kept me sticking with it. I finally finished it on the first two days of a solo painting retreat in August of 2007. I kept saying to myself “this is like being in a difficult labor, this painting just does not want to be born!”

It was great to at last be able to say “Whew! It’s DONE!”

This painting stayed in my inventory for a number of years. As I developed as an artist, my vision refined. I realized part of what had bothered me – the composition was off. It seriously needed cropping. I took four inches off the bottom and right side, focusing the eye more on the main fruit. I had to save – and frame – the sweet little detail of the twig and the curl of the leaf on the lower left tip as a memento of the original painting.

August 2007 – 22″x22″ – later to become 18″x18″ – Watercolor on paper

Persimmon Sun

Original Sold

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A visit back to my neighbor Jen’s persimmon tree the fall of 2008 was a bright sunny day. I arrived none to soon. The birds had started to help themselves to the ripe persimmons – many of them were half-eaten.

Persimmon Rain had been such a special piece, a favorite of many people. Could I paint another to follow it? But this was a whole new story to tell. The colors in the sunlight – especially of the leaves – were brighter, more yellow. And I loved the composition of this image. So, why not?

I struggled finding my way through, painting that first persimmon painting. I learned so much about painting in watercolor in the three years between them. Painting this was like traveling over somewhat familiar terrain with a clearer view of what was to come.

I love painting branches. It is fun watching them become three-dimensional. I painted the persimmon last and grappled with the light and shadow – I wanted the light to glow on the left edge, while also be in shadow.

It is quite amazing to me, magical even, how these paintings end up taking shape, and become real things.

June 2009 – 22″x22″ – Watercolor on paper

Persimmon Rain

Original Sold

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On the street leading up to our house in Fairfax, California, a persimmon tree hangs over a neighbor’s fence. At the time I painted this, my husband, Joe and I had been living in this neighborhood for several years. Every fall, as I went by it, I thought I want to paint those persimmons.

In the autumn of 2005 I got brave and knocked on the door of the persimmon’s house and introduced myself. I met our neighbor Gen Racek, who now passed away, was a spry 90 then. Camera in hand, I asked if I could take some photos of her persimmons.

It had just rained, so I had the added benefit of water drops for enchantment. One of the images jumped out of the set of photos. The imperfection of the leaves and the splotch on the side of the persimmon made it so interesting. Then there was that on drop at the tip of the leaf – perfectly placed.

The leaves were a challenge. I had no idea what I was doing. I just stayed with them, looked carefully at the image and tried to paint what I saw, approximating the intense detail of the tiny veins of the leaves with dabbles of my brushes.

My friend Brenda fell in love with this painting even before it was finished. She said it reminded her of her deceased mother’s love for her. The original now hangs in her dining room – it became the first painting I sold. Brenda’s response to this painting and her support of my making art has propelled me forward as an artist.

October 2006 – 22″x22″ – Watercolor on paper