Artist Statements

Artist’s statements provide the viewer with insight into the thinking behind the finished work of art. While this is not essential or intended to influence the viewer, it can expand the understanding and add to the experience.

Art Making Practice 2016, Making art is the best way I know to digest and integrate the ideas I am exploring. Working with my hands takes me out of my linear thinking mind and allows me to access other, more fluid, ways of seeing.  I love it when the work surprises me. Read More

OneWeb, 2016
OneWeb reflects my ongoing engagement in bringing my art and energy work together. Things that once felt distinctly separate are now irresistibly drawn together. Read More.

Seeds Planted for OneWeb & Transformational Energy Weaving.
Looking back, I realize that the seeds for OneWeb Energy Weaves were planted during an Art Expedition to the Sacred Valley of Peru in 2001. While soaking up the high vibrational energy of the sacred mountains and participating in ceremony with some of the local medicine people, Read More.

Held, Brushes with Cancer, 2015

Janet & daughter, Jessica with Held, Oil on Canvas, for Brushes with Cancer, Toronto, 2015

Held is about love. The young woman I was partnered with is surviving a brain tumour. Aside from her radiant smile and generous spirit, what struck me most is how much love surrounds her. Imagine the courage it took to plan a wedding in the middle of chemotherapy.

After spending time with her, I fell asleep with the word “cherished” in my mind. To me, surviving cancer is a testimony to the limitless power of love to heal. Read More.

Paint the Halls Art Battle, Women College, TO, ON

Paint the Halls Women’s College Hospital, Art Battle, TO, 2013

When I responded to this exhibition call, I was responding to the opportunity to help raise funds for Women’s College Hospital. I have so many friends and relatives who have benefited from the stellar services provided by the staff there. Read More.

Pure Potential, Solo Exhibition, *new* gallery, TO, 2010

Pure Potential Exhibition Catalogue

Cool Winds, warm fires. Tall Trees, deep waters. I feel you in my body. I feel you in my soul. Lakota Song – Author Unknown

I’m interested in energy as it relates to form and these paintings explore energy as a creative force.

I am fascinated with the process of becoming – that fluid time before form that is full of possibilities. The paintings themselves morphed and shifted continually in the process of their own becoming. Read More.

Take a Line for a Walk, Member Exhibition, *new* gallery, TO, May – June 2010

Returning, Mixed Media on Japanese Paper, 2010

While Returning appears delicate and luminous at first glance, closer inspection reveals a vigorously worked ground in keeping with the expressive nature of all of my work. Oil and chalk pastel are layered over wax, ink and watercolor washes in bright, fanciful colours that suggest a fairy tale setting.

Presenting a deep, fertile space that alludes to the proverbial Garden of Eden, the painting plays with one of the biggest stories that lives within the psyche of contemporary culture – the Garden of Eden.

The title is borrowed from Jennifer Berezan’s haunting CD by the same name. Berezan’s “Returning” is described as a “long playing chant” and the words include a phrase “returning to the mother of us all.  Read More.

First Light, White, Member Exhibition, *new* gallery, TO, June 24 – August 2, 2009 

First Light, Oil on Canvas Triptych, 3 24” x 28”canvases

“Things are only impossible until they’re not.” Jean Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation

As a painter, I’m a colourist that doesn’t tend to leave much white space so at first, responding to the theme “white” did seem a stretch for me.  Read More.

New  Moon Rising, Solo Exhibition, *new* gallery, TO, June 3 – 21, 2009

New Moon Rising, Exhibition Catalogue

I associate moons with women …. with fertility and creation stories and also with in-between times of flux. I think of tides and nightlight …. of ritual and celebration.

I’m fascinated with things in the process of becoming or coming undone. These paintings explore notions of memory and inheritance as well as intention and “choosing again”.  Read More.

Another World is Possible, Montreal Massacre Vigil, Women In Crisis, Guelph, ON, 2009

As a long term volunteer for Guelph Women in Crisis and a mother with a daughter in university, I was motivated to respond to the opportunity to make a piece of art for the 2009 vigil honouring the 14 young women who were massacred at Ecole Polytechnique in 1989. Events like this affect the community and, in this case the whole country. Targeting women for pursing their education shocked us all and shook our sense of being safe in the world.  Read More.

24 Hours in the City, Group Exhibition, Red Eye Gallery, Distillery District, TO, 2007.
Artist Statement for 24 Hours in the city: 4:00 AM is a fertile, dreamy time where the unconscious often gets to come out and play. Read More.

Remembering, Sculpture Installation, Guelph, ON, 2007

2007 was a milestone year for me. I graduated with honours from the University of Guelph with a BAH in Fine Art.  My husband and I sold our home of 16 years and moved to a condo in Guelph. For the first time, I had a full time painting practice and rented studio space to revel in. Read More.

Self Reflection, Self Portrait Series Guelph, ON, 2003

Self-Reflection Series paintings, 3 of more than 20 self-portraits done over the course of 2 years.

2007 was a milestone year for me. I graduated with honours from the University of Guelph with a BAH in Fine Art.  My husband and I sold our home of 16 years and moved to a condo in Guelph. For the first time, I had a full time painting practice and rented studio space to revel in. Read More.