I paint for the joy of it, trying to convey to my canvas the beauty I encounter all around me, the wonder I feel at the spring green of the unfolding foliage of the maples and poplars across the river, the softness of a magnolia blossom, the shiny purple-black of a chickadee cap. I paint for the sheer pleasure of the moment. The natural world is my muse, the way snow piles up against a stalk of phragmites, the pure white of a narcissus, the coral of a sunset, the roundness of a pear. Van Gogh once said to his brother Theo, " Find beauty in everything. People find too little." Another artist makes each stroke of her brush into a shout of joy. I could try to paint the darkness and chaos that figured so indelibly in my childhood years but I have chosen to paint its antithesis. I want my love for this Earth, this world where I live to infuse itself into my work and be a balm for viewers, an antidote for the bad news, a bit of warm, golden light. ​