Artist Statement

"When I paint, I let the painting take me where it needs to go."

After my career as a graphic designer and illustrator, I ran a full-service Inn, and continued to pursue studies in fine art and poetry. I bring design and illustration to whatever creative piece I am working on. It has been a rewarding and freeing process. There was a time I was uncertain that I could bring these worlds together, to quote Gertrude Stein: Let me listen to me and not to them.

More recently, I have been working on ekphrastic poetry, and I love the challenge of putting verse and art together. I am slowly getting my work out there and published. Perhaps in another life I will be a graphic novelist. In the meantime, I keep a daily sketchbook and am having fun exploring different mediums and artistic expressions.

I have been deeply influenced by art from the 20th century in regards to my paintings. In 1999 I spent a year in Berlin, Germany and lived close to the Brücke Museum, which featured artists that were labeled "degenerate artists" of the pre-war era. I visited this small quaint museum which was a short walk from where we lived. I fell in love with German Expressionist painters.

I'm also a big fan of the New York modernists. Here are a few painters that have influenced my work: Gabriele Münter, Paul Klee, Richard Diebenkorn, Henri Mattise, Brice Marden, Hilma af Klint, Gustav Permeke, Lois Dodd, Georgia O'Keefe, David Hockney, to name a few.

I also admire my fellow Anishinaabe artists: Norval Morrisseau, James Mishibinijma, Jana Harper, and George Morrison.

I prefer modern art to the more traditional art.

Education: BFA with concentration in Studio Art. Five years of course work at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, St. Paul School of the Associated Arts, University of Minnesota, and Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium....