Postcards from the Heartland: POSTCARDS FROM THE HEARTLAND PROJECT

"Bend of Big Sandy" Morgan Co. IL (24"x24")

I've been an artist for over 50 years. Seriously. I had a finger-painting in an exhibit of Southern California Kindergarten Art at the San Diego Art Museum when I was a kid in the late '50s. At least that's what my mom says. I don't really remember it. But I do remember the painting. It was done in blue and white, a winter scene with a snowman next to a house with a snow-covered roof. That must have seemed an oddity in Southern California, but I was homesick for my Illinois winters, so it wasn't that odd to me.

And I've been drawing and painting (sporadically sometimes) ever since.

In that half century, my favorite subjects for painting have been places: historic buildings, farm and home portrait commissions, landscapes that grab me, rivers, bridges, ponds, lakes, and vacation destinations around the Midwest.

Over the past decade I've been traveling near and far, collecting photos to use as source material for a series of paintings called "Postcards from the Heartland." As I paint them, I'll add them to this page, so my family and friends can see what I'm up to.

The farther I travel from home, the more I appreciate the beauty that lies in my own back yard...in the middle of the woods...surrounded by the corn and soybean fields of Central Illinois.

"Bend of Big Sandy" (above) is a 2' square oil on hardboard. It's the view of Sandy Creek from the north boundary of our 35 acres during spring.

"Jeff's Pond" Jersey Co. IL (12"x16") SOLD

"Jeff's Pond" 12"x16"
We camped here with Doc and Goatie one night this past summer. It's the most beautiful farm pond I've ever seen.

"Crestview Oak" Greene Co. IL (16"x20")

"Crestview Oak" is a scene from my husband's family's farm: a pasture bordering a soybean field in the Macoupin Creek bottoms in autumn.

"Church at Pere Marquette" Jersey Co. IL (24"x30")

"Church at Pere Marquette" (after Van Gogh) is a large oil on canvas, a stormy rendition of an old country church on the grounds of Pere Marquette State Park at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers near Grafton (Jersey County), Illinois.