Painting has been a lifelong passion. I first remember painting around age 5. My brother has some pieces of mine from that age on his wall and my mother has a piece of mine from around high school. Sometimes people ask me “How long did it take to you do this painting” and the short answer might be 3 hours or 5 hours, but the real answer is life long. It took whole life to gather the experiences and perfect the techniques to paint this way.

My first visit to France was as a young Navy wife back in 1988 or 89 as a young J.O.'s wife. There were several of us going over to meet up with our husband's submarine where it was pulling into Brest, France. In the passing years, I've made it back over there 4 times. But this past summer was the best experience I've ever had in my life. I was there for the whole month of June, teaching two back to back art workshops.