I pick up old plastic horses at thrift shops and for a year this one was stashed in a closet, waiting for a visit from a grand nephew - never know when you might need a toy in the house. I also had a bundle of old paintings from graduate school, stained canvases rendered on the kitchen floor of my apartment back in Ames, Iowa, that bundle wasn't doing anything in the closet either. I was into wrapping as an art form back in the 1990's - I wrapped a powder room chair, I wrapped a giant ceramic egg, why not wrap a plastic horse. I had need of diversion one day during the second or third blizzard of the winter, Steve was in Australia, I was alone in my cocoon, just me and the chickens and 20 inches of snow. Since that exercise I have received about 8 plastic horses of varying size from friends, and have been wrapping ever since.

Growth Spurt- 2011

This is a detail of three panels from my garden series. I spend a lot of time staring into the garden bed and by September the debris and left over tomatoes, oversized zukes and vines from cucumber and butternut squash have claimed victory over my efforts to maintain order. So grab the camera and shoot, see what evolves and start painting. I focus on movement of form and new color arrangements. Each panel is 18"x18", and this piece will be at Charlenes' Gallery Ten in Gills Rock, Door County Wisconsin this summer.(2011)