I began to paint as a teenager.  I would often go to the woods behind my house in Northern Virginia and find old abandoned houses, uprooted trees and other interesting subjects to paint.  I was never happy with the result, being too much of a perfectionist and feeling like I could never get it just right.  I would get frustrated but kept trying until, early in my 20's, I finally gave up.


In my late 40's, my daughter, Theresa asked me to paint a picture for the new house she and her husband, Scott were building.  Something about that simple request opened a well of creativity and I began to paint with vigor.  The first year I started painting again, I painted around 75 paintings.  I didn't slow down much in the following years.  I guess I had saved up some artistic energy and was finally allowing for a release.


Interestingly enough, my perfectionism had not abandoned me and even though I had paintings everywhere I turned, I could not come to call myself an artist.  I reserved that description to people who made "perfect" art.  I felt like my art was more of an emotional release than "real" art.  Allowing myself to paint abstractly allowed for the perfectionist within to subside.  There was no photograph or ideal to compare my art to and it became perfect just as it was.  And as the years went by and many of my paintings sold and I eventually, and very tentatively began to refer to myself as an artist.  A person who made art.  That was me.  Finally.