I love a painting that asks me to study it - that draws me in, that doesn’t do all my thinking for me but allows my imagination to fill in some of the questions created or to tell its own story. I see art as a fundamental way for people to communicate - the giving and receiving of concepts that exist in our imagination, feelings that may not have words or the sharing of familiar images rendered with the artist’s unique perspective or emotional investment. With so many brush strokes or the molding of the medium, the artist can draw out our wonder, leading us to think, to feel, and quite possibly to view the world in a way that we had never before conceived.

Good art always evokes a response.

I began my own collection some years ago during a trip to Key West, Florida where I became happily acquainted with the works of Lucie Bilodeau. She had recently returned from an African painting tour and I was immediately drawn to a small painting of an African Wild Dog, captured in profile, hiding in the grass. It opened a window into the plains of Africa that I had never before seen and I knew that it was a piece that I could look at over and over and appreciate every time. Among the offerings in the gallery that day were huge paintings of elephants, lions and giraffes - but it was the African Dog that called out to me. This is the way of art. Something strikes a chord within in us and a feeling is called forth, a connection is made, and a mood or emotion is sparked - powerful stuff for the aesthetic spirit in us that yearns to be inspired and edified.

I want everyone to be excited about collecting original art! Creating a private art collection is a wonderful and personal experience - a tangible expression of one’s growing and changing interests, and becomes something to be passed down from generation to generation.