I enjoy the gathering of people for plays and performances. I like to witness it and record it. A librarian friend of mine called me an archivist. That's fine.

I have been fascinated with Ellicott City since I first saw it and the city has been the subject matter of many of my paintings. Its historic buildings and hilly quality were so different from the flat Midwest where I grew up. Since 2010 I have participated in Paint It Ellicott City, a pleine air event. The Patapsco Female Institute Ruins sit at the top of the highest hill in the city, and that is the site of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company's summer plays. The last two floods have been a shock to all of us closely involved with historic Ellicott City.

Portraits keep me in the real world with real people. It counterbalances my work from memory and my work from sketches, and I get a chance to work with an sitter for four sessions.

The next few projects are one big project. In 2003 I attended Chesapeake Shakespeare Company's Romeo and Juliet at the Patapsco Female Institute Ruins in Ellicott City. I have been painting the plays performed there every summer since. I was already interested in the historic building, an 1830's girls' boarding school. The ruins are perched on a hill overlooking Ellicott City, the river and the railroad. I was an English teacher a few years and the rich subject matter is endless. There are trees, night skies, old stone walls, ruins, costumes, drama, picnics, families and Shakespeare's words.

This is a continuation of the above project. In this group I depict a scene from the Tempest as a real storm is brewing in the sky. The group did Macbeth as a Movable Shakespeare where the audience followed the actors around the site for different scenes. Macbeth meets the witches on the steps and they dance in the woods. Lady Macbeth goes crazy in the chapel basement, and the play ends with a sword fight on the hill with cars driving below. I found these real scene changes very effective.

A continuation of the Shakespeare project. Details are in above projects. Much Ado About Nothing and Midsummer Night's Dream 2005 are in the permanent collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington. Much Ado About Nothing was in the exhibit Shakespeare in American Life at the Folger in 2007. The curators thought it was a good example of American outdoor Shakespeare. It is in the catalog.

While I was a student at Loyola University's Rome Center I would sit in the cafeteria and look out the window at a villa up on Monte Mario. In the spring I finally got to go up there and visit. It is Villa Madoma, a Renaissance structure designed in part by Rafael. It has majestic arches, gardens, fountains, and terraces. That year of living among ancient, Renaissance and baroque art greatly impressed me and I think it influenced me to become an artist. In 2010 I was able to go back and revisit many familiar sites.

I began painting the Eastern Shore about ten years ago. I try to get there once each year. It is so inviting with its different sights, sounds, color, and light. The air and mood are a change. In my art I try to feel that difference and put it in the painting. Sometimes I am able to do on site painting there and it always adds a liveliness and immediacy to the work.

I traveled to Ireland with a group of artists and hammer dulcimer players. The artists painted during the day and we all went to the pubs in the evening to hear the musicians.

I enjoy doing the ink drawings. They can feel like playing compared to painting because there are fewer decisions to make. At times I do them very fast even without a pencil drawing. That was the case with Midsummer With Owls which I did after the big painting in project 1, Performances.
On a very different note I made this series on Richard lll only as ink drawings, not colorful paintings, and I included text for the first time. Chesapeake Shakespeare Company's 2012 production was a Moveable Shakespeare performed at the Patapsco Female Institute Ruins. The actors moved around the setting and the audience followed. It was performed in the dark in October. Around the same time Richard lll's bones were excavated and identified in England. I have worked on this series since then.