An artist friend once asked me, "What do you want to do?" I had to think hard to focus on what it is with art that I wanted "to do" and the answer was, "I want to bring color into people's homes."

The lovely part about this is that people bring color into my life. Color is all around us in different combinations, contrasts, shades. When I see a beautiful garden I see how the colors combine more than the flowers themselves. It was interesting to pinpoint this goal and the joy I get from working with my clients to create something unique for their homes.

Recently, Anne had asked  if I could copy the design from her living room rug. Envisioning a Persian carpet, I hesitantly answered, "It depends on the rug." Having taken photos, I used parts of the abstract design on her living room rug for the runner in her kitchen I was going to create. Borrowing colors and design, while adding my own flair the end result produced a one-of-a-kind addition to her kitchen. I am grateful for the experience of having seen all her remodeling and ideas. 

Painting is a solitary job, and one I enjoy very much. The added pleasure of visiting people in their homes and business, interacting with their own ideas and color schemes continually opens up new vistas. It's like seeing a lovely garden and getting to know the gardener as well.

Ok, it feels I am coming full circle, and it's a big circle! For many years, I worked with a group of women painting clothing. It started off as a hobby; in those days we had no electricity much less television and computers. And as tourism in Costa Rica grew, many friends started opening shops and asking for dresses and T shirts, so we painted the wild life of Costa Rica, on clothing for tourists ( of course, all the expatriates had them in their wardrobe as well!)

Years later, we moved on to canvas bags, again with designs of nature. When I hit upon canvas floor rugs, well, I thought in the box, of rug designs. borders, stripes, weaves, stencil patterns, all very fun and interesting but traditional. One day the director of an art gallery asked me why don't I put the rug designs on the canvas bags? It would give them a more contemporary look, and the idea of hand-painted in Costa Rica, by Costa Ricans doesn't necessarily mean Toucans and Orchids. It's a look that can go anywhere in the world.

So we began to incorporate the stripes, stamps and stencils onto the bags. It was a challenge to copy the latex colors in acrylic. We are talking two different types of paint, but we mixed and matched.

Then a client asked us to paint the entrance mats for each room in her hotel. Each room has a large painting of flowers so we replicated those flowers onto the floor mats. And there I was, back to nature! So now I was matching colors from the acrylics to latex, to paint heliconias, hibiscus and frangipaini, or as we call them, plumerias.

I've found that with art there is no box. Or frame for that matter! We can paint walls, baskets, clothes, bags, pillows, curtains and rugs. Color and design are as unique as each person; for me the gift of receiving and implementing these ideas makes the whole business of art, an adventure!