"What comes from the heart, goes to the heart." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

What inspires you? What inspires you to paint, to bake, to clean . . . .

As artists, inspiration surrounds us, most of the time, and makes the hard task of making art easy. Somedays, it is nowhere to be found.

In my long journey of an artistic life, I have been inspired by so many people, so many artists, so many friends - I feel very blessed. I hope to give back to others by inspiring them, sharing with them, helping them. This is what makes the creative circle keep going.

It is not only other beings that inspire me, it is the beauty of nature that surrounds us that inspires me as well as a million other artists. The natural world, the trees, the fields, the marshes, the lakes all play a part in my work. I am definitely not an 'urban' artist and know that I could never be - as that, for the most part, gives me no inspiration at all. I guess I am lucky to live where I do and need to keep reminding myself of that.

So where do I get my inspiration from . . . hiking, walking in the woods, riding my horse through fields, woods, marshes, in all seasons! Traveling, awakening my eyes to something different. Sitting and doing nothing. Yoga - giving my mind time to 'chatter-down'. Exercising - hiking, biking, walking, snowshoeing, skiing.

Inspiration is all around us, sometimes we have to look for it, sometimes we have to just be still and it comes to us!

This painting is titled "Forest Grove" and is 18x18" oil/cold wax on paper.