Artist In Residence

Laguna Beach, California

I was in residence at the Hortense Miller Garden for two seasons; winter 2014 and spring 2015. The garden is now owned by the City of Laguna. This residency ended with an exposition of the 15 pieces painted on site at the Hortense Miller House.  The unique Laguna seaside light is the primary focus of this body of work, as well as the sculptural aspect of many of the native plants that were planted by Hortense during her 40 years on the property.  Each painting has a distinct atmosphere that reflects the season it was painted. During this residency, I conducted numerous art walks at the HMG, and spoke at the community center Susie Q about water wise plant issues.  I have included six paintings from this residency in the LBSCA expo at 7 Degrees, as well as the donation painting to LBSCA.

St. Ives, England

I was invited to St. Ives in November, 2015.  I had the pleasure of meeting the Mayor, Linda Taylor on several occasions. Together, along with the local LBSCA members, we initiated the idea of the Artist Exchange Program with Laguna Beach. Although at the very western-most tip of England…truly land’s end!…St. Ives has subtropical plantings along with traditional English gardens. It’s a very interesting mix.

My residency there was a short two weeks.  I discovered that most of the artists in this famous art colony in England paint the sea, so my focus on gardens was a novelty for them. There are several lovely municipal gardens in St. Ives.  The most visited is the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden.  I was only allowed to sketch, not paint there, so I instead collected Fall leaves from the garden and painted a bouquet in a traditional Cornish jug. The second painting was done in the Trewyn Garden, which has dense borders lining the central green.  Finally, I painted the Memorial Garden, which had an old low palm tree with an interesting trunk, an indication of the subtropical climate.