I’m from Michigan, but my parents had a vacation place on Cudjoe Key which I enjoyed visiting for 20 years. In 2011 there was a down turn in the real estate market. A house on Cudjoe that my husband Paul and I were looking at on Zillow, dropped its price by $100,000.

So, we decided to buy it and move to the Florida Keys!

I was incredibly inspired by all the color in the Keys and the—Dramatic skies, water views, variety of tropical plants, and water birds. I especially loved the Egrets, Pelicans, Herons, and Ibis

Our house on Cudjoe Key was 860 sq ft. Without much space to make art, I made small watercolor paintings in a sketchbook —like this painting of an Ibis. I sold Giclee prints at art fairs, and eventually at a Key West gallery called Frangipani.

This is a painting of a Key West conch house—a style of architecture developed in the 19th century and attributed to immigrants from the Bahamas known as ‘conchs.’

Conch Houses are rectangular with a porch across the full front and often have louvered, ‘Bahama shutters.

In 2015 we were lucky enough to buy the iconic Smiley-Face houseboat in Key West depicted here in the middle of it’s neighbors.

It had been moved to the Key West City Marina in the 90s from its original site at Historic Houseboat Row—a bohemian colony of floating homes made famous by Ernest Hemingway.

Paul and I would walk our dog Leo by the Charter Boats in our neighborhood several times a day. In late afternoons we would watch the fisherman cleaning their catch.

Pelicans would flock in a frenzy to catch scraps thrown into the water. This painting was enhanced digitally, “It’s called “Charter Boat Row.”

During hurricane season, we watched storms develop off the coast of Africa, travel across the Atlantic, then over or around Cuba before heading to the Gulf of Mexico. Conversations at the pools and bars in Key West were of past storms, and plans to evacuate or hunker down.

Hurricane Irma was the most intense hurricane to strike the U.S. since Katrina in 2005. Irma intensified to a Category 4 before making landfall on Cudjoe Key. We had evacuated back to Michigan, and upon returning, found that both our house on Cudjoe Key and our houseboat in Key West were badly damaged.

Our pink neighbor landed on the electrical entrance to our houseboat. The whole boat shifted, opening gaps, and letting water seep into walls, and damaging windows. The Cudjoe house also had roof and window damage, and the mold that comes with that. It took a year to fix both places.

Here’s my family on the roof of the houseboat, re-painting the Smiley-Face after the roof was replaced.. The original roof was removed and a restaurant-owner in Marathon took it away to hang in their restaurant as a conversation piece.

After fixing and selling both properties we plotted our move back to Michigan

We moved back to Michigan in the spring of 2019. I got a full-time job at Holland Hospital where I had worked before, and Paul went back to work at R.I.T. Music in downtown Holland.

It was great to get back to family and friends in Michigan— but I missed Key West, and Paul will tell you— I struggled our first winter back with the grey and the cold.

Just as Covid started in 2020 I moved to a part-time nursing position at the hospital. Paul and I also moved into a larger house in Saugatuck Township with room for a studio. To help me find a new art direction, I joined a 12-week online course called, ‘The Creative Visionary Program,’ In the Art2Life organization founded by Nicholas Wilton.

He is the founder of Art2Life, and fabulous teacher of the Creative Visionary Program (or CVP for short). (He has a free, online, 4-day workshop in February if anyone is interested.)

In CVP, I learned how to use acrylics, set up my studio, work in a series, and how to analyze design principles to make my art better. I naturally began making paintings of trees since that’s what surrounds my home here in Saugatuck Township.—This painting is called, “Dance With Me.”

I also learned to create abstract paintings by following the process of call and response until a painting just seems to take on a life of its own.

Like many artists—I often name paintings when they are finished with the first word or phrase that comes to me. This painting is called ‘Hearts & Flowers.’

Although I didn’t go to Art School, I did get an MFA in Graphic Design from the University of Michigan. I had a career as a graphic designer before becoming a nurse.

I still love letterforms as you can see here in this painting called, ‘Fidget,’ —now hanging at J.Petter Galleries, the Saugatuck Annex.

Last September Hurricane Ian made landfall near Boca Grande near my friend Jan’s condo. Since I have experience with Hurricane damage—I helped Jan organize the clean-up and fixing of her condo.

This painting is called, ‘Pink Cloud & Tidal Wave,’ dedicated to my Florida friends after the storm.

In my process, I make a lot of painted papers using the extra paint on my palette. These papers get cut up and added to mixed media paintings.

Here’s an example with this painting called, ‘Rain & Shine.’ I think it’s partly about leaving Key West for Michigan, but also about how you don’t appreciate the sun shining—until it rains.