I so love to paint in oils. With them I can develop rich, life-like colors, moods, feelings, patterns of light, and expressions.  The soul of a painting is the sketch, and each oil painting is drawn before a brush is ever raised.  Even a plein air painting begins with a drawing: determining the composition, planning the play of lighting ... I could go on and on.  Once that soul is created, I begin work on its heart, the underlying colors, which catch the spirit of the picture.  My husband sometimes laughs at me for loving the smell and feel of the oils.  I love watching my dream or the dream of another person come to life.  I love taking the beauty of a moment and transforming it into an undying beauty.

I hope you enjoy the four suites of paintings below.

While living in Bergen, Norway in 1994 I decided I would capture in oils this wonderful land and its people.  After eight years my labor of love consisted of over 30 oil paintings.  Many of these were included in my two, solo exhibitions at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and my one-person exhibition at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle.  While these are paintings of that beautiful land, their colors and themes would compliment the decor of every home.

Farmers in America might feel a little at sea if they had to take a boat to town, but it is not rare in Norway, and with prospects like these, who could mind being enisled?

“Hytter” means huts, but a Norwegian’s hut may be just as fine as his house in town.  Many of the people own a hut in the mountains or at the sea, or both, and everyone has at least access to one even if by rental.  Centuries of science and progress have not diminished the Norwegians’ love of the outdoors, and with settings as peaceful as this one, they never will.

We were spending the weekend with two friends in a cottage at Arnafjorden, and, after a very late dinner, the genial host proposed a boat tour of the neighboring shores.  We had followed this little fjord, nameless save to the residents at its termination, where a pair of brothers tended their ancestral farms and sheer walls of rock imprisoned them on three sides.  When we emerged, I was struck by the unearthly silence and the distinct planes of light and color which the midnight sun contrived.

Rock is another commodity in great supply in Norway, but not even stone could stand against the great ice sheets that carved out the fjords and left the west coast liberally sprinkled with islands.  From this particular granite mass the plucky Fedje lighthouse flashed out its warning beacon.  And what of our dear friend, Sigmund?  He was born quite close, on a patch of land on a nearby islet called Langoey.

“Dyrhaug” means animal hill, literally, but no animals were out combating the deep snow on this winter day.  Not many cross- country skiers, though, could resist an opportunity to leave their signatures on this deep, fluffy expanse.

Myrkdalen, the name means dark valley, but my recollections of Myrkdalen are all bright, from ski tours when the snow was plowed so high that the roads were like tunnels, to autumn hikes over rocky desolate highlands where defiant lemmings were the only creatures around; from dazzling days in early June when it seemed we skied over a gigantic snow cone with aquamarine pools just beginning to break through, to cozy, festal nights around the coffee table inside the pine-paneled walls.  The young girl in the bunad (native costume) represents Tone, our daughter’s dearest childhood friend.  Just five years old, she was our first language teacher and, more importantly, taught us the beauty of a Norwegian friend.

Unlike its rainy manifestation on the west coast, winter retains a hard cold grip on the east.  Here, the sun is rising over Sweden, but its rays have no effect upon the thick mantle of ice and snow, except to tint them in wonderful colors.

The home-built boat has been beached, nets mended, and the cod, cleaned, split, and hung to dry beneath protective nets.  Fishing this way is not easy, but the beautiful backdrop is more than a little compensation

There is water everywhere in Norway, and all of it is beautiful of its own, as well as capable of reflecting the other wonders around it.  This still, glassy pond is a good mirror of the tidy farm and the birch trees igniting the constant pines.

Here is another hut, valiantly striving to breast the snowy waves, but this one will have to be brave and wait for Spring before welcoming its family again.

Before there were oil and gas, there were fish; after oil and gas, there will still be fish. Settlements like this are picturesque, and ideal for painting, true, but they are also hard-working places that help keep a nation well-fed.

Not far from here a friend lost the propeller of his boat motor, and the ensuing repair gave us occasion to make a whole new round of friends.  On the hottest day of summer this water is so cold it will rob a person of breath, but it also yields up delicious fish, and in modest little weekend cabins like these, I have formed bonds of friendship that distance will never weaken.

In May, with winter lingering on the higher altitudes, we made a car trip along this renowned fjord and some of its tributaries.  Spring was everywhere in sights and smells.  It seemed strange that the industrial town of Odda lay not so many miles to the south of this place, but easier to believe that these colorful blossoms would give way to sweet fruits.

My exhibition at the Nordic Heritage Museum is called “The Seasons of Norway,” and I like this painting because it shows two of them. Autumn still lingers on the trees and grasses around this lake, but winter is inexorably creeping down to meet it.

For many years, until we moved to our ranch in Montana, our family gathered at the Alabama beach for the Christmas holidays.  The traditions created as the children became adults, still continue and now are shared by their children.  Instead of my mother reigning, even with Alzheimer's, over the holiday festivities, I am now the grandmother sharing these joys with the little ones.  Many of these paintings were part of my show at Christina's Art Gallery in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

She is the first – our grandchild … a precious combination of love, warmth, compassion, pout, and charm. It was Christmas, her first trip to the beach. Timid and shy holding tight to me, she ventured onto the sand.  And there we sat  building a sandcastle together, sharing a moment I shall never forget. She discovered the beauty of the waves, the sky, and the gulls, and I was filled with love of her and memories of her daddy at that very age.

Four men test their fishing fortunes on an afternoon away from work.  People picture our Atlantic coasts dense with buildings and population, but this sandy stretch of Alabama, where mother sea turtles deposit their eggs and dolphins frolic in the waves while oil is pumped off-shore, is deserted in winter and never crowded. For over fifteen years  I have walked these beaches hundreds of miles and never tire of them .

A winter afternoon on the beach and nothing could be more perfect: gulls squabbling overhead, cold water splashing on my ankles, the sun's turning all the houses into golden shrines. I feel so alive and glad to be alone andr even happier to be holding the hand of someone I love.

To stand on a beach alone at sundown with shifting sand beneath my feet and the waves crashing into the shore fills me with awe at the profound greatness and beauty of creation. No random chance could produce such majesty.

As I look out the beach house, I see the mists of gold and honey-colored hair flying in the wind, young children laughing and playing. I hear the squeals of laughter and shrieks of excitement as chilly waves tickle little feet.

This title and description is for my children.  Even with nightfall on them, the football must be tossed one more time. It has been a day long with excitement and rollicking fun, but they hardly notice. They play until cold and hunger drive them indoors.

Standing on a beach unscarred by human footprint, while the dolphins dart and frolic and the gulls argue overhead, fills me with a deep sense of belonging. I am on this earth, of this earth, and a part of creation. What a magnificent feeling.

China is a magnificent country. While my husband had to speak at an international meeting, I spent my time catching the beauty of that land and its people, its colors and sights.  I then turned these sketches into oil paintings.

The river is wide and brown and runs swiftly to the south past simple farms where water buffalo idle and gaggles of ducks scramble. Cormorant fishermen pole their slim rafts and hail the tourists leaning over ship railings. Behind the green hills tower the blue and purple, foggy limestone towers. They are fantastic in their variety, and were it not for my paintings, I might suspect I only imagined them.

In the heart of Guilin, lies a wonderful park, whose center is a delightful lake mantled with flowers. The contrast of tranquility with the noise and bluster of the city was overpowering.

Thanks to our plane's stopping in Japan, we were able to spend a few hours touring there.  The beauty of a Japanese formal garden with lovely Geisha girls strolling about summarized the heart of that industrial nation.

An aura of incense surrounded this monk, though he was in prayer and never noticed.  The indirect light filtering in softened everything and made the brilliant colors more startling.  I felt God was truly present there.

We traveled by rickety bus from the regal city of Hohhot to the tomb of Ghengis Khan.  On the way we stopped to pay homage to the Mongolian Princess whose marriage, centuries ago, united two nations. Mongolians still come to pay homage to their princess.

Here are three paintings that mean much to me.  One, entitled "Francis" is a tribute to my mother's father. The second is a tribute to my father's mother. The third, "The Wall of Memories", is my tribute to all who fought in the Vietnam War, to all those who suffered, all who died, all who never received the honor they deserved.

He was a hardy, caring grandfather with zest for life though it was never easy. Born in Austria, brought to Chicago as a baby, trained to be a master furniture-maker, he toiled in a factory creating mining equipment. He felt lucky to have that work, for after all, it was the Depression. He fathered four children but lost his first baby to pneumonia. He loved his family and friends and showed that love with parties lasting into the wee hours. Mellowed by his home-made wine and Grandma's feasts, guests would strike up a band in the basement.  He was destroyed when she died, and though he lived twenty years more, Alzheimer’s and absence of his Mary dimmed his existence.

There they roar, one after another, six abreast, hour after hour. The monuments, the streets, even one’s own body reverberate their sounds. The modern cavalry charging down Constitution Avenue declares to the world that they gave their lives, their emotions, their youth, their everything to that war, the Vietnam War. It is the last Monday in May, Memorial Day, and they leave their everyday lives of lawyers and doctors and engineers and factory workers and school teachers and parents and widows and orphans and mount their steeds in a rainbow of colors - to announce to the world that they suffered and gave all they had for the war that divided the nation, the war with no glorious end, no patriotic speeches, no welcome home. They gather at their monument to meet comrades, to relive the past, and to commemorate those left behind.

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