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Well chosen words can whisk you away to a foreign land or remind you of your own passion for travel. I’ve written those words as a travel writer but imagine my joy when I discovered that the old adage is true: a picture is worth a thousand words. With my art I can share moments from my extensive travels with images that are colorful, textural, and nuanced. Using paper as my primary medium permits me to nod towards the whimsical as I sometimes incorporate pieces of maps, or money, or stamps in the small details. Art inspired by my trips at home and abroad are based on my own memories and photographs. Each image comes with a story.

There is a mystery in my family involving Japan, my grandfather who I never met, and his children by his third wife, a Japanese woman he met during the American occupation of Japan after World War II. Somewhere in the world, I have Asian cousins. My mom has Asian siblings. She also has her own memories of living as a young child in occupied Japan and a few Japanese treasures bestowed upon her by her father who died too young. Is it any wonder that when I create art purely out of my head, this lifelong mystery flows out onto the canvas?

I have to assume that the Japanese mystery in my life has affected my taste in art. I love Asian landscapes, Asian alphabets, ikebana, and origami. My still-lives tend to be asymetrical in balance and the flowers I choose are Asian in origin. Even my color palettes evoke the Far East. Using paper as my medium is ideal for these influences because of the relationship between handmade papers and even manufactured paper with Japanese calligraphy, origami, and art. My art is not purely Asian in look but it has the feel. I also like to incorporate my love for words into these pictures, sometimes with messages about hope for peace in the world and preservation of nature.