The War on Women

Savita Halappanavar ( Savita Andanappa Yalagi; 9 September 1981 – 28 October 2012) was a dentist of Indian origin, living in Ireland, who died from sepsis after her request for an abortion was denied on legal grounds.

This series was inspired by the recent unconstitutional and discriminatory Supreme Court ruling. It is my way of honoring the memory of women (and a few men…) who have died or been harmed by restrictive abortion laws and access to safe abortion. While at the same time, the history which reminds us of what happens when you criminalize abortion.

When I began researching and painting these and thinking about the whole picture of abortion rights - I realized just how messy and complicated it is. It is not just about “anti-abortionist” versus “pro-choice.” It is part of a much bigger picture. These women were/are victims of the never ending slavery and misogyny through out the world, since time began. Even though women comprise more than half the worlds population, we have been shamed, abused, murdered and enslaved for way too long. Most women don’t talk about their abortions, much less publish their stories - so it is difficult to find these subjects to paint. It’s all very hush, hush. Not to mention that worldwide statistics have never reflected the true number of legal or illegal abortions.

The story of abortion rights is about herstory (not the history we learned in school…), it is about the way women have been controlled by men, the way unwanted children are treated, what they learn and who they grow up to be, the women who would rather risk death than have an unwanted child, women who will never be able to finish school, or achieve their life goals. Ultimately it is about freedom - the freedom for women to have the same social and economic advantages and rights as men.

To view my ongoing series of watercolors, go here.

For more about my art, thoughts and research on the War On Women - read on!

And please, speak up, act up and VOTE!

“Did you ever see somebody die of a septic abortion?” And she said, “Well, let me think about that.” And I said, “Oh no. No, no. If you see anybody die like that, you never forget it.”

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.“ - The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Forced birth is slavery. The recent Supreme Court decision is a violation of the 13th Amendment.

Abortion bans force pregnant women to endure the dangerous work of pregnancy, labor and childbirth against their will. They place pregnant women seeking abortion under state control and require them to perform involuntary labor. Pregnancy, labor and childbirth are difficult, life threatening, non-stop, 24/7 forms of work. Not to mention the lifelong costs, both physical and financial, of raising a child to adulthood and beyond. The average cost of raising a child from birth to age 17 is $233,610. Unsafe abortion remains one of the five leading causes of maternal mortality, despite the fact that it is mostly preventable. More than 22,000 women and girls die each year after having an unsafe abortion.

All The Things - How Did We Get Here?

Witchcraft/History - Witch hunts were all about persecuting the powerless. Women were both the victims and the accused, casualties of a society controlled by powerful men. The majority of witch hunts occurred between 1500 and 1650. Having a big labor force was necessary to having a successful economy. In the aftermath of the Black Death, population control was an important political goal for the ruling classes. The way to systematically increase the size of the labor force was to gain control over reproduction. Women were seen only as wombs that produce children who will enter the labor force. The states used “multi-media propaganda to generate a mass psychosis among the population.”, which included names such as Thomas Hobbes and Jean Bodin, but also many other government officials who traveled the countries and spread propaganda about witches. They also used policing apparatus and methods created by the Inquisition in previous centuries. They sowed distrust which disintegrated small societies, targeting lower-class women who had knowledge that was crucial for the autonomy and integrity of their societies. This knowledge, such as healing, birth control, and midwifery, came in direct opposition to the state interests. Many of these women were hunted down, put through unfair trials, and brutally murdered. To gain control over the reproductive force of the population they put the practices of midwifery under strict state control. Many of the “witches” were also midwives or “wise women”, and traditionally the practices of midwifery and obstetrics were exclusive to women until the 16th and 17th century. In the 16th century there was a new precondition to being a midwife — the woman had to demonstrate beforehand that she was a “good Catholic”. In the 17th century there began to appear the first male midwives and “within a century, obstetrics has come almost entirely under state control.” Witchcraft denunciations are common when patriarchal institutions are trying to establish dominance over matriarchal ones. Those condemned as sorcerers and witches or "heretics," were in reality some of the most advanced thinkers of their ages. Widespread church and state-sanctioned torture and killing of witches set the stage for modern society's acceptance of violence against women.

Voting/Governing - Women's legal right to vote was not established in the United States until 1920 with the passing of the 19th Amendment, while Black men were given voting rights in 1870! The total population was 38,925,598 with the African American population composing 4,880,009. That makes approx. 20,000,000 women. Think about it. That is the majority population not having the same rights as a minority group! And black women had (have) it the hardest of all… Men still control the vast majority in government, corporate and economic leadership, even today. The U.S. lags far behind other countries on women representation in government. In fact, it ranks 75th out of 193 countries. There has been a black man as a U.S. president - but never, ever a woman. When women are underrepresented in politics, laws go into effect against the will of the majority. Women are 51% of the population in the U.S. but make up only 28% of Congress. Laws have been consistently the domain of men, so how can women be represented?

Divorce/Independence - When a divorce law was finally enacted in 1857, a husband needed to prove adultery to obtain a divorce. By contrast, a wife was required to prove adultery and some other especially aggravating circumstance to have the same grounds. Brutality, rape, desertion and financial chicanery did not count. During most of American history, women’s lives in most states were circumscribed by common law brought to North America by English colonists. These marriage and property laws stipulated that a married woman did not have a separate legal existence from her husband. By taking his name, the wife "belonged" to her husband. A married woman was a dependent, like an underage child or a slave, and could not own property in her own name or control her own earnings, except under very specific circumstances.

Economics - Women work as mothers, housekeepers or “homemakers”, yet are rarely paid for these jobs. If a woman is forced to have a child, who will pay childcare so that she can hold a job? Around the world, women do the vast majority of the unpaid work, including child care, cooking, cleaning and farming. This unpaid work is essential for households and economies to function, but it is also valued less than paid work. The quickest route to poverty is to become a single mother. And then there are the costs unique to a woman. The total amount women spend on tampons is approximately $1,773.33. Plus there are the added costs of birth control, yearly exams and personal items. Men project unreasonable and sexist beauty standards onto women from childhood on up, through Hollywood, advertising, daily interactions and social stigma. The average woman will spend $15,000 during her lifetime on beauty products alone. All these prices are set by male owned and controlled companies which generate huge profits at the expense of women. (Tampax Pearl generated sales of nearly 300 million U.S. dollars. Kimberley-Clark (Kotex) had net sales of $19.4 billion in 2021.) And then there is the cost of childcare - with parents are spending an average of $14,117 annually for childcare. Among the 50 states, the annual cost of center-based day care averaged over 40% of the state median income for a single mother.

Violence Against Women - The fundamental evangelical Christian movements (and right-wing cults) that thrive today refuse to speak out against domestic violence, rape, incest and abuse because their doctrines are the foundation for conditioning women and children to accept abuse. All states finally made "wife beating" illegal by 1920. However, only since the 1970s has the criminal justice system begun to treat domestic violence as a serious crime, not as a private family matter. Nearly 20 people in the United States experience physical abuse from an intimate partner every minute. Judith Herman, M.D. maintains that the function of domestic violence is to preserve male supremacy. “Perpetrators understand intuitively that the purpose of their behavior is to put women in their place and that their behavior will be condoned by other men as long as the victim is a legitimate target. Thus, women live with a fear of men which pervades all of life and which convinces women that their weakness is innate and unchangeable." Children learn this violence at home as a way of resolving conflict, growing up to repeat the same old patterns. As of 1998, an estimated 17.7 million American women had been victims of attempted or completed rape. Only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to police. That means more than 2 out of 3 go unreported. Out of every 1,000 sexual assaults, 975 perpetrators will walk free. Prior to the 1970s marital rape was legal in every US state. Not until 1993 was marital rape a crime nationwide. Still, in the 1990s, most states continued to differentiate between the way marital rape and non-marital rape were viewed and treated. Domestic violence has been found to constitute the single largest category of police calls in some cities. When police officers respond, they know the situation can be volatile for both them and the abuser’s victim. That’s because the killer in almost one third of female homicides is an intimate partner, and 22 percent of officer deaths in recent years occurred while responding to domestic violence calls. A 2015 survey by the National Domestic Violence Hotline found that 80 percent of the participants who had called police were afraid that if they called again in the future, officers would not believe them or wouldn’t do anything about the violence. Nearly 1 in 3 women have experienced stalking victimization at some point in their lifetime. Most the victims of all these crimes will suffer high rates of depression, anxiety, insomnia, and social dysfunction.

Equal Rights - Three years after the ratification of the 19th amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was initially proposed in Congress in 1923 in an effort to secure full equality for women. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of divorce, property, employment, and other matters. It failed to achieve ratification. And all these years later it still hasn’t passed. Since our country’s founding, women have been left out of the Constitution—intentionally. They were second-class citizens deprived of basic rights to vote, enter most jobs, or own property.

The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage who, in 1917, argued in a letter to Congress that passing the 19th Amendment would be ‘an official endorsement of nagging as a national policy.'

The U.S. has also steadfastly refused to join 187 other countries in ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. (Others who refuse are Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, and Iran.) If parenthood became prioritized over motherhood and if women, like men, were classified as people, rather than first and foremost as mothers, then many of the remaining barriers that women face would be removed, even in the absence of the ERA. Men often agree that women are equal in theory, but they are not necessarily lining up to do more dishes and carpools. Women consistently earn less than men, and the gap is wider for most women of color. Women are disproportionately driven out of the workforce to accommodate caregiving and other unpaid obligations and thus tend to have less work experience than men. Access to paid family and medical leave makes women more likely to return to work. However, as of 2019, only 19 percent of civilian workers had access to paid family leave through their employers. Year after year there are new laws to control female reproductive systems - yet not one statute exists that controls the male reproductive system. If women are forced to give birth, maybe men should be forced to get vasectomies… From a Pew Research Center survey - among those who think the country still has work to do in achieving gender equality, 77% point to sexual harassment as a major obstacle to women having equal rights with men.

“While driving my fifteen-year-old daughter to school, she asked, “Mom, why do men hate women?” We had been discussing Alabama’s anti-abortion legislation, and she was keen to better understand why politicians would pass laws that criminalize girls and women. She was especially horrified that rape victims — some younger than she — could be forced to carry a rapist’s baby to term.”

Silence, Shame and Misogyny

Society has shamed women for being women in a multitude of ways. We are constantly shamed for not adhering to typical beauty standards, or for being - too prudish, too slutty, too skinny, too fat, too hairy, too old, and on and on. Shamed as birthmothers, rape survivors, parents of large families, poor mothers, pregnant and parenting students, and those who were driven to abortion. Abortion is a common and safe medical procedure. But abortion, like general female issues, are surrounded by stigma in our society. We hide our tampon boxes at the check out and the cramps doubling us over, even though we are more than half the population. Only 32 percent of women in the U.S. stated they are comfortable talking to others about their periods. Things are even worse at work, where more than half of men studied believe it is inappropriate for women to openly mention their menstrual cycles in the workplace. 75 percent of women report disordered eating behaviors or symptoms consistent with eating disorders; so three out of four have an unhealthy relationship with food or their bodies. Stigma keeps people silent about their personal experiences, and silence feeds public complacency with political attacks and destructive myths. 1 in 4 American women will have an abortion by age 45 and 60% who terminate a pregnancy already have children. The anti-abortionists constantly claim that women use abortion as a birth control method. How many women do you know that do this? I don’t know a single one. Women do not like getting abortions, it is a traumatic event that we never forget, a necessary evil. “One of the most important things about the issue of abortion in the U.S. is that people don’t want to talk about it. They fear the stigma, providers fear the stigma that they’re going to be harassed, targeted, because they have been. So one of the most important things is just being honest about it.” - Dr. Caitlin Bernard

“They would put lye in their vagina to induce an abortion. They used coat hangers. They literally used coat hangers and knitting needles. They died.”

Philosopher Kate Manne defines misogyny not only as hatred of women, but also about “controlling, policing, punishing, and exiling the ‘bad’ women who challenge male dominance.” “When women as a class cannot make our own reproductive decisions, it gets much, much harder for us to participate in public life. We become much less self-sufficient and much more vulnerable. And men gain a significant advantage. Anti-abortion laws are misogynist laws.”-Jill Filopovic

They Are Not Pro-Life

The only simple aspect is this: anti-abortion = anti-women. You can’t ban abortion, you can only ban safe abortion. Women have and always will seek out abortion. The people who call themselves “pro-life” are not pro-life. Women die because of them and the unwanted children usually have a miserable life. So whose life are they “pro”? Why are there so many kids in foster care being ignored? It just makes no sense. The only life many of them are concerned with is the life of the fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus. For conservatives, especially the Christian Right, there is just one viable person: the fetus. Women are dehumanized, treated merely as vessels for delivering new life. They are much less concerned about the life of women who have unintended pregnancies or the welfare of children after they’re born. In fact, many people who call themselves “pro-life” support capital punishment and oppose child welfare legislation. The evidence is clear that the number of abortions changes little when there are legal restrictions. Instead, where abortion is most restricted, it is more likely to be unsafe. Where abortion is legal and safe services are available, deaths and disability from abortion are greatly reduced.

Using the term “anti-abortion” is a more accurate way to describe people who want abortion to be illegal. We need to stop using the term “pro-life” and maybe use “forced birthers” instead. It is certainly more accurate and honest. ““Pro-life” is a magic trick that wraps disdain and revulsion for women’s bodies and lives inside a shiny silver box with pink and blue ribbon. Forced-birth legislation fails to protect children at all, while punishing women who abort — or even miscarry. But punishment is precisely the point, isn’t it? Because such legislation has never been about the children.”, - Monica J. Casper, Ph.D. “Pro-life” is not a neutral, descriptive term. It is a dagger of psychological warfare that is backed by hate and terror. It is a profound libel and insult to those who help women. Words kill, and the phrase “pro-life” is an obscene and grotesque sophistry. It is a cruel and vicious fraud.” - Warren M. Hern, M.D.

Let’s call anti-abortion legislation what it is: anti-woman, anti-mother, anti-child, and anti-freedom

“I never thought about ending my pregnancy. Instead, at 19, I erased the future I had imagined for myself.”

Sources: Ms., NYU Law, Online Nursing, Thinx, Planned Parenthood, Smithsonian, Harvard Business School, Guttmacher Institute, Coral Anika Theill, Doctors Without Borders, New York Times, Shared Justice, The Conversation, 19thNews, National Archives, Monica J. Casper, Ph.D., RAINN, CNBC, Judith Herman, M.D., Kate Manne, Pew Research Center, American Progress, Science Daily, Wikipedia, Represent Women

No More Marilyn Manson

When painting portraits one always runs the risk of depicting a flawed or unpopular individual. As an artist one must paint what inspires them and that may change over time. Change is the one constant and my painting of Marilyn Manson (Brian Warner) is a great example.

Originally I was inspired by Manson’s creepy and otherworldly image - his white makeup lending itself to merge with the wood grains (on the panels I like to paint on) in a haunting way. I was never a fan of his music, knew little about him as a person - I just knew his dark projected image hooked me in.

Recently many women have come forward to describe disgusting abuse and misogyny on Manson’s part. Below are just a few excerpts of this behavior.

He had “a a solitary-confinement cell used to psychologically torture women. Warner frequently banished his girlfriends there, keeping them inside for hours on end to punish them for the tiniest perceived transgressions. He called it the “Bad Girls’ Room.”

Ashley Walters, a former assistant suing Warner for sexual assault and other charges, says he enjoyed telling people about the chamber. “He always had a joking, bragging tone,” she remembers. “If anyone’s bad, I can lock them in it, and it’s soundproof,” Warner boasted to a magazine in 2012. Ashley Morgan Smithline tells Rolling Stone that Warner repeatedly forced her to stay in the space — which was about the size of a department-store dressing room — for hours at a time when they were dating. “At first, he made it sound cool,” Smithline says. “Then, he made it sound very punitive. Even if I was screaming, no one would hear me.” As she tells it, “First you fight, and he enjoys the struggle. I learned to not fight it, because that was giving him what he wanted. I just went somewhere else in my head.” It was here, multiple exes allege, that Warner inflicted repeated acts of mental, physical, and sexual abuse that have left them with crippling bouts of anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and PTSD.

Game of Thrones actress Esmé Bianco alleges that Warner frequently abused her verbally; deprived her of sleep and food; bit, cut, electrocuted, and whipped her without her consent; and raped her during their two years together. In one horrifying episode, Warner wielded an ax and chased her around the apartment smashing holes in the walls after saying she was “crowding him.” Manson who allegedly bragged about having a “rape room” in his apartment to a teenage Phoebe Bridgers.

Evan Rachel Wood spoke to the House Judiciary Committee in support of the Survivors’ Bill of Rights Act. “My experience with domestic violence was this, toxic mental, physical, and sexual abuse, which started slow, but escalated over time, including threats against my life, severe gaslighting and brainwashing, waking up to the man that claimed to love me raping what he believed to be my unconscious body, and the worst part, sick rituals of binding me up by my hands and feet to be mentally and physically tortured until my abuser felt I had ‘proven my love for them.’

These are just a few of the women abused by Warner - if you want to dive deeper into the sick animal Warner is - here is a link to the Rolling Stone article.

So my quandary was this - how to destroy my painting of this abuser? I felt being painted by me was an honor he did not deserve. So I took the art and painted a big dark X through his face and boy, did it feel good! I will burn the art and enjoy watching his face covered in flames. Sexual assault is a horrific experience and predators need to be exposed and punished. In the meantime I will dig a little deeper into subjects before I paint them… and enjoy vengeful retribution renouncing victim hood.

New Paintings of Vintage Abandoned Scenes

Wanderlust has been haunting me over the last Covid year and one of my favorite things to do while traveling - is to stop whenever and wherever I want. Along the road at abandoned places, behind buildings, down alleys - shooting photos for future paintings. I’ve a compromised immune system and the dismal spread of Covid and now the new Delta variant, has me realizing I may not be able to do any travel other than road trips for a long while… But who doesn’t like road trips? I can’t see myself missing an airport anytime soon!

So lately I’ve been traveling through my paint brush, adding some mixed media pieces of street scenes and found goodness to my abandoned art series. You may view and purchase them in the Once We Were Here section. Wonderfully rusty stuff, peeling paint, defunct signs and colorful shop fronts. Available for only $250, these are affordable original artworks for anyone’s home! All rendered on superior Arches pure cotton watercolor paper…

An Altered Book Wunderkammer

Cabinets of curiosities (also known in German as  Wunderkammer) were notable collections of objects.. The term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings), and antiquities. The classic cabinet of curiosities emerged in the sixteenth century, although more rudimentary collections had existed earlier.

I’ve always loved these vintage collections ( I’ve had to curb my own tendency to collect curiosities over the years) and when the Marin MOCA announced it’s popular altered book exhibition, I thought it the perfect opportunity to create a mini Wunderkammer. Sorting through my stack of vintage books, I chose a well worn collection of works by Plato. After gluing together the pages, I carved little shallow shelves to display favorite vintage images and found objects. Among the curated images and objects are: antique anatomical illustrations, wonderful bugs, beetles and butterflies, an antique skeleton key, a shell, a parrot feather, botanical art and more…

The Altered Book show is scheduled to open July 25th, running through August 29th, hopefully Covid19 will allow art shows to begin again - but wear your mask, please! There will be incredibly imaginative works of art created by skilled artisans from books in all shapes and sizes. For updated information - please check the Marin MOCA site.

Take a peek below for some closeup details of my little Wunderkammer, - hope you enjoy looking as much as I enjoyed making…

Our Overstory: Trees, Dryads and Myth

“A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.“ -  William Blake

Although I’ve always painted a few trees here and there, I have begun basing most of my newer creations on trees and dryads (tree spirits). Largely this has been inspired by reading myths about goddesses and the incredible book “The Overstory” by Richard Powers. It blew my mind in so many countless ways - educating, fascinating, enlightening and soul crunching.

My favorite tree is The California Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia) with it’s gnarled and twisted growing habit. It can grow to be over 100 feet tall and can live for almost 300 years. Here in California, I’ve grown up around these beautiful live oaks which were scattered all over the golden hills and park areas. Over the years, I’ve noticed they are becoming much more scarce and it’s downright tragic how many of them are going, going, gone… In the past seven decades, more than 1 million acres have been lost due to land development, wildfire, disease, harvesting for firewood, and other forms of habitat destruction.

“You and the tree in your backyard come from a common ancestor. A billion and a half years ago, the two of you parted ways. But even now, after an immense journey in separate directions, that tree and you still share a quarter of your genes …”

Another fascinating book, which Powers pulled some science from, is Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees. - trees in the forest are social beings. They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbors; warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network known as the “Wood Wide Web”; and, for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long-felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.

About Dryads

Trees have long been thought to house spirits within wooded forests and groves throughout the world. Dryads are such spirits, members of the lesser deities known as nymphs in Greek mythology. They uniquely exist to watch over & care for the tree they are born with and in rare cases, groves and other creatures. Dryads are always female and usually inhabit oak, although they can also be found within ash, pine, poplar, apple and laurel trees.

Dryads are considered minor and mortal goddesses who have exceptionally long life spans but are deeply and supernaturally connected to the trees they call home, and are limited to the space of the tree or the forest the tree grows in.

Among the Dryads are several types, each associated with a different kind of tree. The most common are the Hamadryads, born within oak and poplar trees, along waterways or sacred tree groves. The Meliai, of ash trees, are ancient and were wed by men in the Silver Age before the first woman was created, and are believed to be the originators of mankind. Oreiades dwell in mountain pines and wild places. The Maliades and Epimeliad inhabit fruit or apple trees and are guardians of both trees and sheep. The Daphnaie are rare and inhabit laurel trees. Finally there are the Caryatids, which inhabit walnut trees.

Inspired Quotes

“Before it dies, a Douglas fir, half a millennium old, will send its storehouse of chemicals back down into its roots and back through its fungal partners, donating its riches to the community pool in a last will and testament. We might well call these ancient benefactors “giving trees”. - The Overstory by Richard Powers

“In this state alone, a third of the forested acres have died in the last six years.. Forests are failing due to many things - drought, fire, sudden oak death, gypsy moths, pine and engraver beetles, rust and plain old felling for farms and subdivisions. But theres always the same distal cause, and you know it and I know it and everyone alive who’s paying attention knows it. The year’s clocks are off by a month or two. Whole ecosystems are unraveling. Biologists are scared senseless.” - The Overstory by Richard Powers

“The Northwest has more miles of logging roads than public highways. More miles of logging road than streams. The country has enough to circle the Earth a dozen times. The cost of cutting them is tax-deductable, and the branches are growing faster than ever, as if spring had just sprung.” - The Overstory by Richard Powers

"The very idea of "managing" a forest in the first place is oxymoronic, because a forest is an ecosystem that is by definition self-managing." — The Trees in My Forest by Bernd Heinrich 

This then, is my way of paying humble homage to Earth’s magnificent trees and forests, before they are all gone…

Many of these works are for sale!

For details, please click on the “Botanical”, “Abstracted” or “More” sections of my Portfolio in the menu.

Da Brahma Bull

I was asked to do a very large painting of a Brahma bull for a collector. He loves these bulls and he asked me to place it in the pasture outside his childhood home in Michoacán, Mexico.

The size of this painting was a bit of a challenge in my small studio, but it was well worth it… It feels so rewarding when someone commissions me to paint a subject dear to their heart, the happy expression on their face makes my day!

Some interesting tidbits I learned along the way: The Indian-origin Brahman cattle breed is named after the Brahmins (Hindu priests), who themselves are named after the Hindu deity Brahma. Many Hindu Brahmins are vegetarians and consider cows holy and bulls sacred, eating neither. The Brahman's hump has evolved over time to help the animal survive in hot, arid conditions. It is made up of tissue that stores water.

Meadows Edge in Upcoming Exhibit

My painting “Meadows Edge” will be on display, along with many other wonderful nature inspired works, in the upcoming exhibition - Uplift: Celebrating the Sierra Nevada. Artworks representing the Sierra Nevada’s terrain, ecology, geology, history, recreation, and endemic species of plant and animals, as well as its effect on the culture and climate of California and Nevada.

Exhibition Dates: October 12 to November 3, 2019
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 12 6:00-8:00 pm
Family Art Day: Sunday, October 27, 1:00-3:00 pm

Arts Benicia
991 Tyler Street, Ste. 114, Benicia CA

Hari, New Altered Book Art For Upcoming Marin MOCA Exhibit

Pleased as punch to share my new piece, a beautiful altered vintage book, originally titled “Hari, The Jungle Lad”. I was inspired by some inner pages which talk about listening and silence - almost with a meditative connotation. I cut out the pages in squares on each side of the book, to inset and frame my art, which depict scenes described in the book pertaining to lessons on how to hear, listen and enjoy silence. Things we all can use lessons in!

It will be on display in MarinMOCA’s “10th Annual Altered Book Exhibit” which opens this Saturday. If you can’t make it to the opening reception, be sure and drop by for the auction. Book lovers will be happy with the chance to add some art to their walls…

Exhibit Dates: April 27, 2019 - June 1, 2019
Opening Reception: April 27, 4-7pm
Live Auction and Closing Party: June 1, 5-8pm

Art Talk with Mary Austin and Donna Seager
April 27, 4pm, Hamilton Community Center,
(next door to MarinMOCA) 503 South Palm Drive, Novato, 94949

“The book becomes art at MarinMOCA’s 10th Annual Altered Book Exhibit and Fundraiser. Marin’s most unique art show features over 180 original book art objects, created by artists who combine compelling messages with creative technique. Fans and art collectors will see an innovative display of Altered Books. Mary Austin, Founder of the San Francisco Center for the Book, and Donna Seager, of Seager Gray Gallery in Mill  Valley will jury this year’s exhibition for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, honorable mention. “

500 Palm Drive,
Novato, California 94949

"Violet Dozing", A New Pet Portrait

Painting animals and wildlife is always fun for me and when I can paint someone’s beloved pet it’s even better. All pets have their own personality and quirks, the things that make a pet portrait sing! This black lab was named Violet and she sadly passed to doggie heaven this last year. Just like Grandpa, during her last few years she would often doze off on the couch, head upright but still somehow sleeping… so cute.

I used tones of violet (of course!) in the composition, as well as colors from the client’s living room curtains and wall paint, to happily marry the artwork with their decor. I worked from a few photos I took while visiting. But I’ve also worked from photos clients have emailed me.

This portrait was executed in an abstract style with thick chunky pop art strokes, acrylic on canvas. However I also love to paint more realistic smooth renderings, oil paint or watercolor, or even surreal interpretations. If you’re looking for a pet portrait artist and like what you see, drop me a line. I will work with you on your budget for the art, you can spend as much as you want or as little, depending on how many hours I work. The finished art will be shipped to you, if you don’t live nearby. If you’re looking for a pet portrait artist in the San Francisco Bay Area or Marin County - you’ve found her!

My Portrait of Bill Murray Included in New Book

A new hardback coffee table book of art featuring Bill Murray has just been published! The Art of Being Bill: Bill Murray and the Many Faces of Awesome is written by Ezra Croft and Jennifer Raiser. Chock full of wonderful artworks depicting Bill in many roles and inspirations.

Pictured here - My Three of Clubs playing card homage to Bill, inspired by the movie Caddyshack is included! For a bigger view, click here.

This book that would make a perfect addition for Murray fans far and wide, or a fantastic Christmas, birthday or random gift. Plus you are helping to share and support artists work.

Link to book on Amazon.

Working, Working, Working On A Website

New Website

Hope you all can overlook any oddities on my site while I tweak it into shape... 

And thank you for stopping by!