How did I start painting?

I grew up as my father’s painting assistant, helping lug his huge Expressionist canvases to various shows, going with him to sketch at Niagara Falls, minding the booth at the outdoor art fairs where he exhibited his work. I loved painting and sculpting myself but I didn’t get a lot of encouragement; art was my father’s domain. As I moved into adolescence I found different creative outlet for myself; acting in theatre, radio and on television; making jewelry; sewing clothes; painting glassware.
Ten years ago I woke up on a January morning with the irresistible urge to paint. I don’t know where it came from or why it showed up on that particular day, but before the urge could pass I reached for my young daughter’s watercolors and began painting. I went through an entire pad of paper and that was that. I was painting.
My first formal art class was in botanical illustration, which was wonderful for teaching me about close rendering, but I found that I couldn’t keep my irises on the page. My flower paintings extended beyond the borders of a sketch pad; I was painting what I saw, but not necessarily what was in front of me.
My earlier work was representational, beginning with the four “F’s”: flowers, fruit, fish and figures. In a short while I moved on to interiors, landscapes, clouds and seas and then one day the horizon line disappeared.

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