As a self-taught artist, when I first started painting in oils, I was obsessed with Peter Beard’s African elephant books, and I used one of his photographs of a bull elephant reaching up to grasp a tree branch as inspiration. The photo was so moving that I decided to paint the elephant red as a warning color, because they are endangered. When I started the painting in the morning, my husband saw that I couldn't get the perspective and depth. When he came home that evening, I had completed the painting and he said, "you are an artist"! “

I have painted my elephants red ever since; to paint them any other color would feel like a betrayal of what they have come to represent in my work.”

My red elephant paintings have won numerous awards in New York art exhibitions, and I continue to paint them when the inspiration strikes.