One of the processes I use when I’m considering my next painting is to scroll through the 35,000 close-up photos I’ve taken over the decades to find something that interests me at that day. It might be a flower type I haven’t painted yet or at all. Or it might be a color combination that speaks to me that moment. Bringing the jpeg file into Photoshop, I go through a process of cropping. This helps me to see different ways of possibly incorporating it into a composition. It also helps me to disengage with the fact that it is a photograph of a flower and just concentrate on color and form. These mockups are stored in the cloud accessed by all my computers in a folder titled WIPS (Work In Progress). Growing the plants, taking the photos, documenting thousands of these photos for research and access, selecting one, working on that image in various ways on the computer and storing the versions for reference, are all part of my creative process.

I began this daily journal in February, 2026 as I prepared for my solo exhibition, “Portraits From My Garden” at Locust Grove in Poughkeepsie, NY, from June 5 – September 15, 2026, my work for the group show, “Hearing Women’s Voices” at the Ceres Gallery in from June 23. to July 18, 2026, and my upcoming November 2026, solo exhibition titled, “Centering in the Midst of Chaos” in Chelsea, New York City