Having been ”raised” a figure painter throughout my formal education, I did not consider the landscape as subject matter until a train trip through Italy in 1979. I was simultaneously reading the exquisite depictions of the English countryside in Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” while also looking out of the train window at the eloquence of the Italian landscape. I was captivated by the shapes, color and structure of the landscape and the potential painting experience within it. It remains a deep devotion for me and I have evolved that initial idea into depictions of the nature experiencing extremes of weather and light.