Someone asked me to describe my art. I use a lot of symbolism in my work and I always have some sort of story going on in my head when I'm making art, so "symbolic narrative" is what I came up with. But things have evolved.

I've painted hands for years. They probably evolved as the result of my childhood. I grew up in historic northeast Minneapolis in a blue-collar environment. I studied my mom's hands as she hung clothes and rolled dough for pierogi. I watched with a five-year-old's fascination our next door neighbor's hands as she used her ax to decapitate a hen for dinner. And even as a kid I sensed that my family's welfare depended upon my dad's ability to use those strong hands of his to shovel coal into the boiler of a Soo Line steam engine. The folks in my neighborhood survived by working with their hands. This probably was the beginning of my fascination with them.

Lately I find myself moving in new directions, specifically botanical watercolor. I took my first classes in this highly disciplined genre in the fall of 2010. I didn't expect to fall in love with it. And now that I'm learning to live with a brain tumor, I find that the zen-like calm that comes from the intense concentration of working so minutely, is a really good thing. So...more nature, fewer hands.

My other creative outlet (and one that caught me by surprise) is writing. I wrote a lot when I taught high school English. I'd forgotten how much I missed it until I started a blog. There you'll find my musings about creativity, a few books reviews, and lately, what it's like to be a WWABT -- pronouced "wabbit" and standing for "Woman With A Brain Tumor." Thanks for reading!

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Juried into Susan Hensel Gallery's annual art book show for 2009
"Small, Smaller, Smallest"