What's Your 20? A new series of paintings....

This year is my 20th anniversary working as a 

full-time professional artist!

And, oh, the stories that I could tell you. I've met so many wonderful people through my profession, both interested patrons and fellow artists. It's still the greatest source of joy for me when someone chooses to invest in a painting that I created. 

Along the way, I've made plenty of mistakes -- everything from leaving home without an essential part of my show display to putting the hanging wire onto a piece upside down. I've felt the lowest of lows, from disastrous outdoor art shows marred by terrible weather (hurricane rainfalls, high winds, sleet, and more!) to having my cargo van vandalized. 

But I just keep going. That really is the secret sauce to all of this. As is having the help of my supportive husband, Tim. We don't always match at art shows, but sometimes there aren't many alternatives left in the suitcase during a trip (!)

As I mark this occasion, I look back and realize that my next outdoor art show, The Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania this weekend has been in the making for the past couple of decades, as well as my lifetime. To celebrate this anniversary, I'm introducing a new series called, "What's Your 20?" Colloquially this shorthand expression is a way of asking, "What's your location?"

In this series of paintings, I'll share where I've been in my career by highlighting many of my favorite themes. I'll also foreshadow where I'm going, with some new ideas and fresh ways of seeing, as referenced by Picasso in his famous quote, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."

"What's Your 20?" Kicks off with a new landscape from the Great Smoky Mountains, Winter Haven.

I chose this debut subject because it bridges my past with my present. Moreover, I believe one of my responsibilities as an artist is to showcase the beauty that surrounds us each day, even a cold day, and even in the midst of the challenging issues that confront us in our modern world.

From my earliest memories of ice skating -- wobbling around on the Yahara River in southern Wisconsin wearing my brothers' hand-me-down hockey skates -- right up to my present-day home in east Tennessee, winter is integral to my identity as an artist. It's a season of restoration, and nothing clarifies the contours of the land like a fresh, fluffy layer of snow, which -- incidentally -- is never "just white."

“What’s Your 20?” will continue now through the end of this year with a featured painting each month.