Laurie MacMillan

I always knew that visual aesthetics were important to me. My love of terrain propelled me out of the flat Midwest, to the West with its inspirational landscapes. But I didn’t take up painting to express my love of nature and geology until I was in my fifties, after other careers. Since participating in abstract painting workshops under Rick Stich, Bob Burridge, Jim Armstrong and Krista Harris, I’ve been largely self-taught. I begin each painting with an idea, which develops as the piece progresses.

After losing our home and belongings in Santa Barbara’s Tea Fire of 2008, we moved to a home with a lovely garden. I began wandering along the paths and working with the plants, and found it to be very meditative and healing. I realized that my new fascination with botanicals was really about the same thing as geology, which had interested me for years: change. Plants grow and die, and the earth builds up and erodes. I learned from the fire that everything around you is impermanent, which somehow is freeing. My paintings are inspired by this constantly evolving and beautiful natural world.

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Cynthia Martin