Inspiration, humor, and joy in nature
More than ever, I find inspiration in nature. The more I look, the more I see of nature's unfathomable miracles. Each new subject opens a Pandora’s Box of awe, beauty, questions, hitherto unnoticed details, fascinating connections and ideas. I learn something with every sketch and painting. The photograph above: what is it? It’s a bird bomb! I glimpsed a chickadee leaping off a branch, fully tucked, to bomb with greatest efficiency toward his destination. This only took a nanosecond and was over before my brain could fully process it, but the camera kept an image for me. You just can’t beat nature.
Why watercolor?
Painting in watercolor is like collaborating with a friend whom you love, but who can be capricious. I call it collaboration, because in the doing of it, I’m open to and ever intrigued by, what the medium itself will bring—that wily, unwieldy water. I balance and juggle the hopes and plans I start with, with the will that the medium itself seems to impose. I love that measure of unpredictability. If I had it all in my head and the rest were just execution, that would be boring, wouldn’t it? But an unfolding process of intent, mixed with discovery—that’s engaging. In a different way, the subject seems to have its own needs too. A baby goose, after all, requires a treatment that may well be different from what the great blue heron calls for. Or a red panda.
Why clay?
When I was growing up, my godmother had a potter's wheel in her kitchen. In her kitchen! I thought it odd and wonderful that she could make dinner and pots in the same room. I’ve thought so much about dinners and pots since then. Working with clay (and food, for that matter) has always been a practice and learning that I'm drawn to. There is beauty and joy to be found in mundane aspects of our daily life. The objects we habitually use each have their own history and inform ours.
And in fact, clay shares a lot with watercolor in that sense of the capricious friend. It’s a negotiation more than a realization. Isn’t that just like life?