Using egg tempera and unique pigments collected from around the world, my art reflects the unification of both the subatomic and physical world. Throughout my paintings, smaller scenes can be discerned, either with the aid of magnifying glasses or sometimes-special instrumentation. In some paintings, the small images together redefine the whole. Understanding my art requires either examination at a close level or stepping back to see the image in its entirety. Transcendence into the new realm of “relativistic-representationism”, the viewer redefines the space, time and quantum state of the imagery and materials used.

My husband, Philip Shelton, and I built a boat and sailed around the world, returning in 2003. I wanted to see animals in their native environment before human encroachment left no wild places. Leaving our lives behind for three years taught both of us tolerance, patience and acceptance. I now realize that living with animals is impossible if we cannot live with each other. I wrote the award winning book “World Voyagers” when we returned. Described by reviewers as a “written painting,” it goes into vivid detail describing our experiences sailing around the world during a turbulent period in the world’s history. Travelling and writing, taught me to view the world from a totally different perspective- my art became a reflection of this new viewpoint.

My life has been a continuous battle between the left hemisphere of my brain attacking the right. I have finally reached a truce between the warring parties and everyone, for the moment, seems content. My right brain paints. My left brain writes, spends two days a week chasing pets around an exam room, or performs surgery. I was one of the first artists in the country to paint outside the frame. My reason for doing this was to demonstrate that I am neither artist, writer, or veterinarian; I lie just outside all realms.

The artists N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parish, John Singer Sargent, and William Robinson have influenced my painting style. Most significantly, the aboriginal artists of Australia have played a large part in redefining my work with their pointillist paintings depicting aerial dreamscapes.

My recent paintings include works of people and places rarely seen: the tapetum of a cat, a secret reef in Fiji, a microscopic view of a South African flower. Imagery from sometimes surreal vantage points show that all sides of an object must be examined before its existence can be accepted. Aerial views of real places are transformed into other objects: the disappearing rainforest, a lion surrounded by urban humanity, knights battling in the British countryside. I want to show that our world is small and the beauty of it all lies in the differences and contrasts- between people, animals, lifestyles, and experiences. My paintings have also included hidden scenes- atypical animals hidden in foliage, or more recently tiny microscopic paintings painted either with binocular loupes or special pigments. These small scenes show that looking at the big picture can sometimes make you lose sight of details. The details of life define who you are.

I live on an island in Maine, at the end of a dead end road very near the edge of the earth, with my husband Philip Shelton. We build stuff. We grow or raise most of our own food and live simply. We do not waste anything. We do not watch TV. I am honest, selfish, prone to laziness, and am a poor caregiver. I hate shopping. I am nervous eating food I did not raise and kill myself. I make most of my own paint from the eggs of the chickens we raise. I read. I write. I move wood. I garden. We live on what we make, and make what we need to live. That is my life and my life the art.