Paint What You Know…

Born in rural Louisiana, to parents who encouraged ingenuity and resourcefulness in their children, I found myself immersed in color and design from an early age. My father, a house painter and building contractor, brought home color sample books provided to tradespeople by the major paint companies, such as Sherwin Williams Paint Co. These books had a fan-shaped cutout like a splayed peacock’s tail, that allowed you to see several colors juxtaposed against each other, the combination changing with every page you turned. As a child, I spent hours leafing through the color sample books, studying the colors and how they looked next to one another. I liked to watch my dad mixing oil pigments in his paint splattered white painter’s overalls and I remember how he meticulously cleaned his paintbrushes every day after work. Sometimes he brought home blueprints of homes he was building or remodeling and allowed me (if I were very careful) to look through them. I liked to trace my way through the rooms, delineated by white lines on the blue paper. I felt drawn to the texture of the paper and it’s rich blue color. The white grid-like lines in the blueprints would one day find their way into my paintings, as would the circular shape of the paint can lids, lying about as my Dad mixed paint colors.

My Dad was not the only influence on my future artistic self. My mother, quite creative herself, and an expert seamstress, taught me to sew at the young age of nine. Throughout my teenage years, I honed this skill and learned to alter and combine store bought dress patterns to create my own design which I had sketched on a sheet of my mother’s typing paper. I practiced my drawing skills by copying the illustrations of the models on the store bought paper patterns and then putting my own design creations on them. I begin to develop a unique style and fashion sense that did not go unnoticed at the high school I attended. By the time I was 14, I was literally designing and sewing all of my clothing. One of my best memories is accompanying my mother to fabric stores, and particularly the fabric department at Sears. Back in those days our Sears store had a large fabric department with row after row of bolts of fabric. When all of the yardage had been sold off the bolt, except for small pieces - usually one third of a yard to three yard pieces, they were rolled up and tied into little bundles and dropped into a couple of big wooden bins. Remnants were discounted and so were a great value! Mother and I would gleefully dig through the bins, stacking up the remnants we wanted. It was exciting to see all the colors and textures and my mind would race with creative ideas as we made our choices. Returning home with large bags stuffed with fabric bundles, we would talk about our ideas for using and combining the materials. These discussions produced a very energizing and exciting feeling, which I now recognize as “creative flow”. My mother encouraged my experimentation with design and fabric and supported my unconventional pairing of colors and textures, which I believe further strengthened my developing color and design aesthetic.

Years later, as the young mother of two, I attended my first oil painting workshop and felt an immediate affinity for both the medium and the process. Throughout my twenties and early thirties, and the birth of my third child, I continued to take both studio and plein air painting workshops and drawing classes. After a few years, I began to study privately under internationally known artist, Don Cincone.

Cincone, a brilliant painter and master colorist, had a profound effect on the way I viewed and experienced art. I considered him an artistic mentor, as well as a spiritual mentor. He introduced me to acrylic paint and the technique of using glazes to produce multi-layered paintings with depth and richness. His advice to me - “Paint what you know”- became my mantra. “What do I know?” I thought. Color. I know color. It is as familiar to me as breathing. It is an old friend. I see color as an expression, as an emotion, as a living, breathing thing. Color can take over, it can expand, it can transport, it can transform, it can lift you up and it can calm you down. Color, I know.

I began to draw inspiration from my dreams, my memories, my experiences and what I call “fragments of inner knowing”. This “inner knowing” would lead to the inception of my “Vessel Paintings”, incorporating large pots or urns - often with roots and vines growing beneath them, around them or coming out of them. Graceful, intertwined, faceless beings, appear around them and below them. Certain symbols are repeated over and over. It is for the viewer to discern what the symbols mean to them, individually. I believe that once a painting is completed, it renews itself time and time again, through the eyes, emotions and experiences of the current viewer, and takes on a different meaning each time.