Paintings that abstract the familiar – explorations of the boundary between wild and settled.
Minnie’s earliest exposure to the life of a painter was during her late teen years spent in Dutch artist Henk Pander’s studio, in Portland, Oregon, watching him work and learning about the culture and practice of professional art. Drawing inspiration here she began making her own art, painting watercolors of enlarged flowers against geometric backgrounds.
Several years spent working as a scene painter in the theatre gave her experience with mixing color and the craft of painting, and in the early 90s she began working with oils. Her work from this time reflected views from windows: the scrappy plum thicket, untended trees, fence lines, street trees. It was the beginnings of an understanding of our relationship to the natural world.
In 2004, she moved to a small hamlet in upstate New York. There she began exploring the ragged boundary between farm and forest and the changes that each makes to the other. She was particularly drawn to the stark and varied beauty of the hardwood forests and the way they change so dramatically from the dense green of summers to the stark, angular topography of winter.
Three years living in Albuquerque, New Mexico 2015-2018 had the expected transformation of soul that comes from travel and living outside ones comfort zone…now back in upstate New York.
San Antonio, Texas now is home and yes I love it. Temporary lodgings makes for time to wander around and begin the reinvention of our lives.