My work is influenced by an early love of nature fostered by growing up in rural western Pennsylvania. The fields, the woods, to these I ran for consolation, nurture. Nature inspires me still. Her color combinations are always perfect; her beauty, unsurpassed.

There is an also an Oriental touch in my paintings. My husband is Japanese; we married and lived in Japan, and even after coming to California stayed for many years steeped in the customs of that land.

I avoided art in school, thinking like so many others that it was a "talent" some people were born with. But one day to please a friend, I signed up with her for a tole painting class. There was so much tracing. "Why can't we just put the pencil lines down directly?" I asked. And so I found watercolor.

These days, I try only to paint subjects that really appeal to me. I start with a pleasing placement of the objects. If the composition doesn't work, no clever technique can fix it. Then by the flow of the lines, I try to make the viewer's eye move throughout the painting. Values from light to dark become more and more important to me. And color, (the fun part!) I still don't understand, maybe I never will. But paintings seem to have minds of their own. They say, "Put yellow here, blue there…" And I do.