I am a pragmatist working without any particular aesthetic theory. My topics are my own experiences, feelings, and ideas. That said, I usually can’t identify at the outset the motive for any given thing I’m working on. To work is to grope. Meaning comes through the process, and interpretation is the work of the audience. I eventually become my own audience when I separate from completed work. Then my work strikes me as the art of another person with whom I feel particular sympathy.

Since art-making means exploration in rich and various fields of states of mind and memory that might otherwise remain inchoate, style remains a low priority for me. My visual art has a lot of “looks,” but that results from immersing myself in the material given me by a lifetime with a lot of “feels.”

My bachelor’s and a master’s in English literature are academic degrees. I have taken three introductory-level drawing classes; I have no instruction in painting, creative writing, and journalism. I am self-teaching in most things I do, and as such I normally lack what might be considered predictable background influences: Don’t look too hard for them.

I became an artist when I became a mother. Observing the fascinating development of two children moved me into a more deeply inquiring approach to life and to profound appreciation for observant directness. I hope I bring to my drawing and writing something of the moral seriousness and of the sense of wonder that child-rearing renewed in me.