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This will be my third Total Solar Eclipse of the sun. I experienced my first eclipse on February 26, 1979 in South Bend, Washington. First contact was made above a thick layer of white cloud cover over my head. Where I stood under the clouds, a rapid dimness overtook the bright hazy light. The day became quite and dim with a strong sense of silence as the grayness surrounded me. A long pause ensued when, then, as quickly as it came the clouds grew lighter, and brighter again. Standing in its wake I shrugged and wondered what I missed.

The second eclipse was aboard a cruise ship, with my young family, in the Caribbean Sea, near the Leeward Island of Antiqua, February 26, 1998. The day rose clear and the sea tranquil. There was pure excitement and awe from us and our fellow passengers, who stood, as we did then, on the top deck of the massive ship aptly named Galaxy. Waiting and watching, eclipse glasses on, cameras snapping the crested shadows on the deck for the great shadow to arrive quickly from the West. When at the appointed time there-it was! The dark shape rose over the western horizon and within four seconds engulfed our ship.

Immediately taking off our protective lenses to look up we saw the lovely, deep blue heavens and instantly clear views of planets and stars, that seconds before hung there hidden by the sun’s glare. Behind the protective dark disk of the moon active pure white coronal streamers from the sun danced around its eclipse shadow producing shape.

We felt tall as we stood on that ship and viewed the 360 degree ring of dawn at the horizon all around us.

Beautiful and peaceful. Time stood still. Voices sounding muffled with the ooh’s and ahh’s of discovery and delight. All of us wondering how many more precious seconds will we have? How many seconds have passed by? Just when the event seemed to hover and say, “I’m not going away! Yea!”  The exit of the moon revealed our sun again first in the shape of a bright diamond ring effect, before moving away so much we had to don our eclipse glasses again. A memory. A flash of grasping for the moon to come back…but, alas. It was not to be.

And, here we go again, to travel a great distance in the hopes of experiencing the wonders of the Total Solar Eclipse on August  21,  2017 in Salem, Oregon.

Wailea Hibiscus

Greetings from the Great Pacific Northwest!

Come with me as I explore the grand adventure of Fine Art.

Nature is my muse. The outdoors is where my inspiration to create each new artwork begins. My favorite subjects include:

• Seascapes  — where the ocean rolls in and crashes onto the rocky shore or the where the soft hiss of a spent curl gently glides up onto a sandy beach.
• Landscapes –- every season, every year brings new nuances of color offering new perspectives to familiar fields, hills and mountains that were not there the year before.
• People – we are an interesting group! Intricate in our actions we are constantly changing our moods and our postures in relation to where we are in the world.
• Objects – an angle or curve creating a value range of shadow and light? If it brings me joy the shape will find its way to my canvas.