All objects represented here are from the personal collection of the artist. Collectors will tell you that it’s the hunt that forces them to rise from their beds on cold mornings and hit the road for yard sales and flea markets. Justification here for collecting is that I need these items not only for my well being but for my work as a painter. These are my models.

I have an extensive mostly Maryland dairy milk bottle collection. Some may remember my series I did of Divco milk truck paintings. I used the logos from the bottles to adorn the trucks.

Paintings from the tactile age of mechanical metal parts that, when assembled properly, made our lives go faster. The whirring sounds and pungent smells of oil and metal produced the comforting soundtrack of that earlier automated era.

The old icebox model came as courtesy of the Dorchester County Historical Society. They have set up an old farmhouse kitchen which reminds me of our primitive one on our Taylor’s Island family farm. However our fridge was electric.

Vintage toys are from the personal collection of the artist.

Abandoned and operating industrial work sites in Baltimore, MD are included here. The Canton Coal Pier built in 1906, by the Pennsylvania Railroad, was a favorite place to visit while it was still a working coal yard. The sound and smell of the rolling coal cars and creaking cranes remains green in my memory. After it was abandoned in the 1980s I returned to investigate and take photos. I knew I was on the sacred grounds that marked the end of an era.

The Locust Point B & O grain silos were also a meditative spot to visit for inspiration. It was a dizzying puzzle to solve where trains and ships arrived and departed with the grain of the day.

At the corner of Gould and McComas Streets, also in South Baltimore, was a power generating station. The tall, black smokestacks of Baltimore Gas and Electric could be seen for miles on land or sea. Baltimoreans always referred to it as the smokestack building.

Unlike the tourist spot we know today, the Baltimore Inner Harbor once was completely devoted to shipping and industry. Goods were shipped in and out at a very fast pace. Maryland Drydock made a wise decision to locate their repair facility right in the heart of it on Pier 3.

Contemporary, industrial Baltimore still highlights the famous Domino Sugars refinery. It’s an ideal spot to watch for a variety of ships unloading their raw sugar on the pier to be refined and packaged in this nearly 100 year old factory. The main attraction however is its huge neon sign seen by hundreds of thousands every night if you include the passing traffic on Interstate 95.

Machines that move: Streetcars, Trains, Trucks, Ships and Heavy Equipment

Some of the paintings were painted en plein air in the artist’s garden or in studio. Additionally the grounds at Park McCullough House in Bennington, Vermont provided a splendid location.

While my husband is the gardener with the green thumb I am not so much as one with the plants and flowers. The paintings are my way to express appreciation for the beauty they bring us.

Spending time with animals is a rewarding habit to cultivate. Farm animals in particular remind us of our humanness. In Howard County, Maryland Clark’s Elioak Farm has, among its collection, a petting area for children and adults. I met a rooster named Jackson one summer and we became fond of each other. I’ve painted him many, many times as there’s nothing like a vain rooster for a model.

The bulls in France, which is where I saw the ones here, are unfriendly. Always keep your distance because they will seriously charge at you. It’s true. I do have some cock and bull stories to tell.

Mostly vintage Maryland, Delaware and Virginia Seashore paintings and collages included here. These Atlantic beaches were family vacation destinations for many of us over several generations. It was that one or two weeks in a year when we could escape to the sea and play in the sun and honky tonk amusement piers. Those trips made a lasting impression so I’ve painted what was meaningful to me and so to many others it seems.

My extensive collection of vintage ephemera supports much of these collages. Until recently the labels and matchbooks, tickets, menus and more just sat in binders with an audience of one. When I decided to make collages with all the wonderful vintage graphics and ads in my collection it excited many people. I also have posters of these pieces you will find some in my shop.