ARTIST'S STATEMENT When I first began painting I was seduced by colour. Having lived for years as a writer and editor, colour seemed like such a wordless and wonderful way to describe the world and my feelings about it. In particular, I fell in love with the still lifes (flowers, tables, books) my friend and teacher Denise Ireland set up for us to paint. I loved the way flowers pierced the space and filled it with colour. I loved the relationship between the orderly, man-made still life objects and the organic shapes of flowers. In those days, I spent a lot of time trying to get things "right." While my over-riding desire was to give my sense of the joy of things, I also wanted objects to be easily understood. I didn’t realize that the subject mattered less to me than what the objects symbolized: joy in life, richness of mind and the quirkiness of things. Slowly I began to see that often the best bits of the paintings were the eccentric moments that really weren’t "right." As I gained confidence, the orderly shapes of tea pots, plates and books gave way to denser, less constrained canvases that featured gardenscapes -- some real, some imagined and some a little bit of both. Now that I've moved back to the west coast, I'm surrounded again by gardens that are lush and colourful, that spill onto the street, dance around houses or lie quiet, waiting to be discovered. Gardens are filled with all manner of plants, from hardy bushes to fragile blossoms, rich undergrowth and spare groundcover. They offer a place to ponder, a feeling of tranquillity and a sense of the spiritual. They flourish when cared for and struggle when ignored. The challenge is try to capture all that on canvas. When I turned to the subject of chairs to help fund-raise for the Shirley A. Brown Memorial Chair in Women’s Mental Health Research, I discovered that chairs have just as much personality as gardens. Some chairs are fat and comfortable, others are lean and austere. Some appear solid and grounded and fill the space. Others are spindly, brittle and seem impossibly fragile. So the two themes ended up working together; they both bear witness to the contradictions that make up our lives. And now? My current focus is on "place," having a sense of place, finding my place, understanding where in the world we are. But while the topic changes, the overarching themes remain constant. The paintings continue to reveal my sense of the world as a colourful, generous, abundant, sometimes conflicting but basically goodhearted place. Painting has also helped me to understand that it is only by truly embracing the dark that you can discover true brightness. For me, no matter what the subject matter, the act of painting is akin to tending the soul. It is also a way to be of service and make a contribution. The work that I paint is meant to offer hope, vibrancy, a sense of chaos, a sense of order and, ultimately, a sense of peace and the rightness of things.

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