BOC - Bureau of Chickens; 2010
My husband and I had a small family farm which we called Fee Fi Faux Farm. We had chickens, goats, Tibetan Spaniels, vegetables, flowers and guests as we ran it as a B&B for a few years.
We particularly enjoyed the chickens and actually won first prize at Goshen State Fair for our eggs. I also showed some paintings at this venue and had some moderate success.
Photography informed my painting at this time and I have some wonderful shots of the animals, the gardens and the wildlife in the northwestern corner of Connecticut.
This painting is acrylic on printed material with the addition of a ribbon, and the ribbons we won during this time. I call it "Owed to Chickens" and it hangs in my kitchen, reminding me of all the fun we used to have. The dates are 2010 - 2017. The chickens were called Lois, Cluck and Scratch-a-gaweea because they always wandered off adventuring.
Winston, Franklin and Donald - 2025
I still enjoy all things chicken and have statues and wood panels decorating my backyard today.
Sugar and Spicy were our two goats and they were very true to their names. Sugar was as sweet as could be and even allowed me to milk her in her later years. Spicy, however, was a hooligan! She loved to steal the paperwork out of the hands of the UPS driver as he was walking up to the kitchen door. She also munched up any packages or mail she could find.
This picture is a mixed media portrait of the two of them. It is acrylic on printed fabric, wrapped over stretched canvas, with elements of collage with the cutouts and add ons. The idea is that they are eating up the picture as I work on it; or they are emerging from the garden destroying it as they go.
This picture is 24" x 36" inches, ie: 2 x 3 feet and was even bigger when I first hung it. Several houses later I have reduced it a bit by wrapping it around the stretched canvas. It is called Sugar and Spicy and hangs in my living room. Created in 2012, or there abouts.
Kidding Around Acrylic on canvas, 8 x 10 - 2023
Kidding Around I; Colored Pencil, 2008
Backyard Barn Buddies, Acrylic, Plein Air, 11 x 14 ; 2025
This miniature is a 5 x 5 diamond ornament created for the Art Academy Christmas Tree, 2025. We were urged to think "outside the box" and this is what I came up with. Santa is in a hurry and so he's hitching a quick lift from some obliging Canada geese.
It was framed in a translucent frame and hung on the tree. I don't know if anybody saw it because it ended up on the backside, against the wall. Luckily I took this photo before I handed it in.
I like it, and I'm going to do it again as a picture, so stay tuned!
The photograph of this piece was very hard to get because it is large, 29" x 23", and framed behind glass. However, it gives you an idea, and gives me a chance to explain it a little bit. This is a combination of pictures done starting in 1998, then 2006, and finally 2019.
The first element is an 18 "x 23" colored pencil drawing called Blue Face in Flames. I made it in 1998 and showed it in Torpedo Factory Student Show. It's about depression. The second picture is a water color painted for my mother for Christmas, 2006, I believe, called Mary's Favorite Things and featured her brown Betty teapot and favorite gilded China and a lit Christmas candle. The final pieces are a colored pencil study of my face, and another of a blooming rose sometime after the watercolor and before the final construction which was completed in 2020; the year of the pandemic, the year of my arrival in Easton, and two years following my husband's sudden death. This piece is called "Breakthrough" and it hangs in my living room.
This picture is about overcoming grief, betrayal and loss. It is about pain and anger. The idea is that the glinting eyes of my face shine through as I emerge from the destruction of what came before. There are things that I put in this picture; there are things that snuck into the spaces. It is both revealing and cathartic. Everyone has dark times in their lives; this is about getting through them.
I have never shown this piece because it doesn't fit into a conventional exhibit. It is too big, too disturbing, and breaks all the rules. Kind of like life -