My portrait work in the last several years has focused on people whose work includes physical skills and effort: farmers, artisans, construction workers, artists, musicians. Having worked at most of these occupations myself I feel an affinity for the people who choose these workstyles, where manual skills must be mastered and their success or failure is there to see or hear at the end of the day. I hope my portraits give a sense of my respect for this kind of lifestyle.
I am also just fascinated with faces and enjoy the challenge of achieving an exact likeness that is imbued with a sense of what sort of person is pictured.
I have been devoted to creating art since retiring from teaching art 18 yrs. ago. I went back for more art education at the Academy for Realist Art in Toronto and have been painting mostly portraits in the years since. I have been in a number of group shows at The Lodge on Amherst Island in Ontario, and had a solo exhibition there in 2022. I was a finalist in the 2019 and 2023 Kingston Prize competitions, a semi finalist in the International Competition of the Art Renewal Center in 2022 and a finalist in that competition in 2023. I received a Certificate of Excellence award at the 2023 conference of The Portrait Society of America in Washington DC.
