Are you a lurker? Do you scroll through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram glancing at your friends’ offerings without leaving any trace of your presence?

This phenomenon has come to my awareness recently as I try to make a living, or at least some pocket change, as an artist. Bumping into people around town, I’m constantly surprised when they say, “I loved your latest blog,” or “That portrait you just did was lovely.” It’s surprising because there’s no record of them having seen it or enjoyed it. If I hadn’t bumped into them I would never have known they were even aware of my work. Continue reading →

Here in the Boston area you can’t help but be captivated by the greatest art theft of all time—the Gardner Museum Heist. Twenty-six years ago thirteen masterpieces disappeared from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and we all wonder, who would do that, and why? These were the questions I was asking myself at age 17 when I found myself in the middle of the Mount Anthony Union High School Art Heist. Continue reading →

My first art show has wrapped. The pieces are stacked up next to me on the table, the labels are waiting to be popped off the walls, the flowers will decorate our house for a few more days. There is a lot to try and absorb from the past three days, so here are just some of the things I learned: Continue reading →

Keiku was a dog, recently descended from wolves, who was full of wisdom and howls and a bit of savagery and magic, and she was our companion for fifteen years. This is how she found us. Continue reading →

Act I:

Scene I: June 1999, Gold Lake Mountain Resort. After six years of boats and whales, living in a chicken coop, and restoring a barn, we are spending our honeymoon at a spa (my choice). It’s been six years of waiting for Iain’s green card to come through so we could get married without doubts, and now it’s time to start a family. Continue reading →

In the summer of 1993 I was working as a sales clerk at The Body Shop in Faneuil Hall in Boston. I had graduated from Emerson College with a degree in creative writing, and here I was selling Peppermint Foot Lotion and Banana Shampoo. But it was full of fun people and loud music and it was a company I felt proud to shovel bath balls for. Continue reading →

It became apparent a few months ago that something was missing from my series of portraits of Dylan. There was nothing of present-day Dylan. As I looked through my photos of her, I realized there was a major drop-off when she hit the teen years. Why? The photos were on her phone, not mine. Continue reading →

Act I: When our local community theatre company announced their fall show auditions and “Peter Pan” was announced, there was a certain expectation, an order to things that was silently agreed upon, at least among the child actors. There was a boy known to all who would play Peter Pan, there was a boy who would play Hook, there were a couple of strong contenders for Wendy…and it was going to be a fight to the death for Tinkerbell. Continue reading →

When life comes calling for your gift, you imagine it will be a profound moment. If you’re a visual artist something will glow like it’s on fire, screaming for you to paint/sculpt/photograph it. Dreams will come to you and haunt your sleep with images that must be shared. At least that’s what the stack of creativity books from the library said. Lightning was not striking in this house, so I carried on sleeping in, checking Facebook and watching “Ancient Aliens.” Continue reading →