My husband, painter Ronn Johnson, and I have been living in Bloomington since 1969. He is a native Hoosier, but I was born in Wilmington, DE, and also lived in West Chester, PA. I learned to paint and draw at a very
young age at the knee my great-grandmother, Anna Mary Wissler, a painter and woodcarver of some renown in southeastern PA, and have continued all my life to think of
myself as an artist.
My current fascination is the incredible uniqueness of individual flowers. I photograph flowers wherever I go, select the best and draw them very large directly onto the painting surface. Since I switched from oils to acrylics some 20 years ago, I use
many, many colored washes to achieve a realistic effect. I don't think of my paintings as merely flower paintings; instead, my intention is to inject beauty, truth and joy into a sometimes negative world. I like the paintings to speak for themselves and
indeed sometimes they do speak to me through the viewer, for example: "These paintings make me feel happy." "What your paintings say to me is 'Yes!' "
I am grateful to the Creator for these beautiful subjects and I hope I am doing them justice.
