Wild & Precious

At My Best When I’m in Nature

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Eclipse Season

Verdure

Evening Symphony

Like Mary Oliver, my work is inspired by ordinary life at the edges of the landscape. Inventive marks, layered media, and texture are essential elements of my work designed to evoke rather than describe. I offer glimpses of a fragile environment with an emphasis on atmosphere and vibration. Viewers are invited to recall personal encounters with the natural world: to remember fleeting moments of the gentle brush of tall grasses or the cooling shade of towering trees.

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When the Green Woods Laugh

Peaceable

Wren Song

October Outlook

Night Garden

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Night Walk

Summer

Liminal

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Summer Wildflowers

When I was a teenager, my family moved after purchasing a dairy farm.
We had always lived in the country, but this was a new dimension of country living: waking up at sunrise to do chores and often finishing our day at sunset. Summertime was my favorite time of the year.The smell of the hay, playing with the kittens in the sunbeams, and hiding in the fields while hearing the birds sing. Living on the farm, I saw that "everything dies at last and too soon," from witnessing the birthing of the calves to losing my favorite kittens. The seasons on the farm were a preview of what I would learn as an adult: life is sunrises and sunsets. It is unpredictable, untamable, wild, and ultimately truly precious.

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Programmed to Thrive

Forever inspired by flowers and their natural ability to thrive [in the proper circumstances] - I sought to capture the joy and freedom that comes with growth and becoming. I gave myself permission to add my own interpretation of flowers, and tapped into what it felt like being a child and creating. For me that feeling is important to return to during this ‘Wild & Precious’ life. To have fun - and although the painting process can also be : I love it! I hate it! I love it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I love it! I think? I love it! Isn’t that a reflection of life? Which makes it all the more interesting.

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Blue on My Mind

My work develops through direct observation and encounters with the natural world.Extended time outdoors, tending my garden, and observing nature find their way intointuitive visual expression. My abstract collages combine gestural responses to thelandscape and natural forms, creating a feeling of space and dimension. Somewhereunknown, yet well known. A sense of having nothing, and yet possessing everything.Dying, yet living on. Wild and precious indeed!

Fair Weather

Tropic

In June It Is All About Pink

My work is driven by “stubborn gladness” a paraprase of a line from a “A Brief for the Defense” by Frank Gilbert: “we must have the stubborness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.” I insist on noticing all that is wild and precious in my life and expressing it in my work to the best of my ability.

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Down Draft

Ancient Conversation

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Red Barn and Hydrangea

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Flower Market

Few Precious Days

Smith Island Cake Seance Party

t's a collection of precious moments:
The door in the cellar of the Farnsworth House Inn that Lorraine Warren sealed off. I often stay at the Farnsworth and collect paranormal experiences there. The distant eyes of spirits sensing my presence. A crab on a Norfolk, Virginia beach guarding his sandy black hole. My curvy cyclops cat, Roger, twisted oddly on my bed—a gigantic Smith Island cake, whose folklore has captured my attention. I am known to order a slice just for one bite. A child's hand is reaching out of the ocean and my 6th sense is scooping him up. Inspired by the day that I did just that. I saw him go under and pulled him up.

She Who Loves the Dark Realm that Yields New Light

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Wild Calm - Garden Bowls

"OUT OF MY HEAD" and "HERE AND NOW" are the Garden Bowls from the "Wild Calm" collection, designed to infuse daily life with a moment of playful tranquility. These hand-carved vessels encourage a practice of presence, allowing users to connect deeply with the immediate joys of the everyday.

"OUT OF MY HEAD" is crafted as a sanctuary for letting go, helping to clear the clutter of the mind. "HERE AND NOW" invites you to anchor in the present, urging you to notice and treasure the beauty that unfolds moment by moment.

Perfect for arranging flowers with a thoughtful touch or gathering around for a meal with loved ones, these bowls are crafted to be part of your story, an heirloom to be passed down and cherished.

They reflect the shared moments that shape our lives and are meant to inspire reflection and joy in both quiet and lively settings.

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Curiosity, No. 1

Curiosity invites a playful pause for exploration of life's layers, each infused with its own fleeting beauty. Discovering deeper, the continuum of our existence—responding to the marks left by our pasts and laying down new ones for our futures. Curiosity celebrates the delicate dance between the familiar and what is yet to be discovered, finding joy in wonder.

Accompanied by the poem from Emily’s Linger collection—
Linger in sunshine,
In moments that light you up.
Linger in beauty,
In moments that take your breath away.
Linger in stillness,
In quiet moments.
Linger in messiness,
In moments that make you feel a little uncomfortable
Linger in authenticity
In your own truth
Linger in pain,
In the purpose it has for you
Linger in Joy
In the moments that fill your soul
Linger in little magic and wonder.
In moments that make you feel the most alive!

Curiosity, No. 2

For Heather

Rich magentas and purples swirl around the young woman's face so that her hair becomes flower petals. She's vibrant and free. Softer pinks and blues fade to white and lead your eye outward.

Friends and family say Heather Heyer was dedicated to standing up for those she felt were not being heard. Tragically, she died fighting for her beliefs and campaigning against hate. Heather was killed in the summer of 2017 when a car slammed into a crowd of counter protesters who’d gathered to oppose a rally of white nationalists in Charlottesville, VA.

My painting honors Heather's spirit and her passions and the fact that life is precious, and sometimes all too brief.

Boat at Rest

They all stood behind me, the children and their friends, done with painting, ready for boating, and waiting for me to finish my painting so they could get on with it. It was a wild new summer day full of bears and berries and artist friends, but still by the water.

Painting has been healing and focusing for all of us.
We love to paint outside as a little band, in conversation with whatever we find in nature and the light changing and subtly but decisively moving forward. What we find within and without is always a surprise. I love Mary Oliver, and I love capturing the world at the edge of words, the world that weaves our lives with us, always new, always precious.

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Chickadee Rider

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Sleeping Giant

Gladiolus

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Unconfined

Orchid

Pillar

Puffball

Wild Golden Flowers

The meaning I get from Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day” is that paying attention to the beauty around us, with amazement, is more important than anything else we can do with our time.
My piece, Wild Golden Flowers, was painted En plein air at Samuel Lewis State Park in York County, where vast fields of yellow wildflowers were blooming in June. While painting this piece, I marveled at just how precious it was to be there while the flowers were blooming to get the chance to celebrate their beauty during the fleeting moments before the blooming season had passed.

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Picnic by Oppusum Lake

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Andalusian Hillside

Knowing the place

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

My creative explorations— writing and painting—in different ways engage with the concepts of memory, home, and the past, and especially how important place is in our reflections on the past. Before actively turning to oil painting in 2019, I was an academic who wrote about 19thc Brit lit and history, who then turned to memoir and poetry writing. Now I paint, and memories of my experiences of places often drive what I put down on the canvas. I painted “Andalusian Hillside” from a memory of a two-month period in 2013 when my husband and I lived in a tiny village in Andalusia: its perilous roads and desert landscape and incredible beauty.

View from the Train

Everywhere I go, I take pictures and sketches of the natural world. I have always been captivated by the beauty and intensity of nature, from the rolling fields to the large open skies. Wild and Precious is the perfect way to describe the natural world. Nature has an unparalleled intensity while maintaining awe inspiring splendor: a precious resource to be experienced and cherished. When I paint, I seek to document the energy and majesty in the landscape. I find great joy, excitement, and peace in nature. My paintings are a meditation on immersing in the splendor of the natural world.

Colorado Summerscape

I love Mary Oliver’s gentle nudge to “pay attention.” That’s exactly what we did one summer day in Colorado.
We had been hiking through the wildflowers of Crested Butte, Colorado, dazzled by the mountain views and blooms of every color. We basked in the sunshine and soaked up the beauty surrounding us.
As we headed back home toward Denver, we spontaneously stopped off on the side of the highway to watch these rushing waters at the base of this mountain. We were all alone – just the three of us. Peacefully and quietly, we simply watched this majestic winding river, the additional wildflowers coloring the riverbanks, the cloud puffs in the sky smiling at us. We just stood there gazing, admiring. We lingered. Like this abundant stream, our hearts were full - glad for this beauty-full experience and precious friendship time.
It was one summer day I’ll never forget!

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Arrival of Spring

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Goldfinch

Tiny Titans of Spring 2

Titles starting top left: Titles from top left: 1. The Ladies, 2. Boardwalk Bench, 3. Dancing at the Bandshell, 4. Sun Bather, 5. Green Umbrella, 6. Coney Island, 7. Day at the Beach, 8. Ruth’s Good Posture, 9. Folk Dance

These fleeting moments, taken with a Polaroid Spectra camera, remind me of Grandma Ida, who would meet me at a place she called “the rocks” in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. There I would watch her confidently swim laps in the unruly Atlantic ocean. Me on dry land because I was too scared. But noticing all of the people, colors, sounds, smells of summer at the beach. Then we would go to the beach club, right off the boardwalk, swim in the saltwater pool and see her friends, gloriously enjoying vibrant activities, rowdy and alive, wild and precious.

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Midsummer Haze

"Midsummer Haze" is a dreamscape inspired by my most cherished views around Lancaster County. The mountains seen in the distance while driving through the countryside, the lush wetlands along my neighborhood walking trail, the simplicity of the tall grass and overgrown weeds behind my favorite park.
After visiting many places throughout the country, I've gained a fresh appreciation of our beautiful state of Pennsylvania. This painting is a celebration of its humble beauty.

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Beauty is a Necessity

Working from poetry, looking for images, collage seem to have more possiblilites and connections. I had an interesting frame that became my starting place. Poetry is metaphor, art then becomes a visual poem. I started with images that I like to use, sculptures, color, flowers, black and white image of the building reminded me of museums have seen. For variety, some of the images are cut precisely with an Exacto, some torn images with a white edge needed color – which lead me to add blue on the edge of the mat. I looked through my boxes to find something dramatic, so the whole became a stage set, just slightly out
of focus.

Life and poetry is a soft focus. Added gold paper to the edges, so the whole piece blended into the frame.
Satisfied that my art, explained Beauty is a Necessity.

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The Blooming Black Beauty

Finding Solace

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Poppy Field of Dreams

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Life Is But a Beanstalk

*A lyrical paraphrase from a Procol Harum song
I have always considered this phrase to be a beautiful way to live……
Climbing up the Beanstalk, doing good work.
One slips down the Beanstalk if there is a moment of wrongdoing.
Climbing, climbing, up, down and up again.
My tapestry represents the leaves of the Beanstalk and their symbolism
In one’s fragile, Wild and Precious life.

High Desert Sunset

Flowering Tree

Enthralled by the dance of sunlight through the branches of three tender trees, each adorned with fleeting white blossoms, I was spellbound and motionless. It was early May, a moment when nature's ephemeral beauty burst forth, filling my soul with the warmth of the season. Amidst these brief, intoxicating days, I found myself yearning to linger in the garden, where every passing hour revealed new wonders.
That year held a bittersweet allure, a reminder of life's transience. Yet, beneath the blossoming tree, I embraced each precious moment with a childlike wonder, knowing it would slip away like morning mist. In that garden sanctuary, I learned to cherish the beauty of impermanence, finding solace in the quiet symphony of nature's rhythms.

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Mayhurst

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Peonies

The older I get, the more I find metaphors in gardening that relate to the cycle of life, from being young,
to parenting children and then aging…of growing and tending things. Everything has a season.
The connection to nature and the passage of time is a common theme that runs through much of my work.
I am not only trying to create a visual representation of flowers, but an immersive reflection on the cycle of life
that gardening embodies. The vivid colors of the peonies depict freshness and vitality,
evoking the joy of a garden in full bloom. However, these blooms are fleeting and precious, much like moments in life.
This painting serves as a deeper reflection on the temporal nature of beauty and encouragement to find profound meaning in the everyday.

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Passing Through

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Radiance

Why We Wake