ABOUT ME

I have naturally toggled between doing visual and written art according to what best worked to respond to the conditions I entered into.

I painted the people, places, and my sense of internal and external environs, trying to be a useful observer. I worked with the public as a waitress, cook, and teacher, and painted the people I met and wrote them missives of my love.

I lived on small farms in Bainbridge Island and Kingston, Washington, and was deeply immersed in the natural world. I painted and wrote about rural scenes and animal inhabitants. Thus, while I worked as a landscaper, during the 1980's and 90's, I began to make garden altars from wood, slabs of stone and glass, as a way to reflect on the beauties I witnessed in gardens.

For two years I worked on two series of paintings simultaneously, as they each represented ways of thematically harmonizing main elements of the world I lived in.

The Abstract series was inspired by a hundred-year-old (at least) crazy-quilt, a gift from my father.

The Peacemaker storytelling series was my way of speaking to the social and civil changes of our times, by focusing on developments surrounding peacemakers who attempt to change “the way things have always been” in society. The figures portrayed are characters that have shown up in my work for years, as you can see from drawings and paintings I have included elsewhere on this site.

In my most recent paintings, done during 2022-23, I continue with story-telling. These images reflect the quiet life I have been able to live with my partner on our small farm in the country across Puget Sound from Seattle, where our companions are, along with a few good friends and neighbors, primarily trees and animals. Here, characters ride my beautiful mare, on a mission to distill meaning from our passage. These are inspired in part by Rembrandt's Polish Rider painting, where that figure rode within a similar wilderness- though one set in a distant time. Through both images and poetry,

I work to understand the meaning of things. I try to recognize the wide experiences of being human and to make an exploration of the real world.

I have been writing and working in paint and other media all my life. I have shown paintings at various Northwest venues and have published poetry in Seattle magazines.

I was born in 1950, one of four children of Virginia and Clayton Lewis. You can find my father's work on his website. I come from an artistic family. My brother, Thomas Lewis, was a songwriter ; My brother Peter Scott Lewis is a modern classical composer.; My sister Susannah Lewis is a designer and photographer; My niece, Anja Claire is a singer/songwriter, and my nephew, Michael Rosen, is a filmmaker. My step-brother, Marcos Lewis is a ceramic artist and jeweler, Many of my cousins are visual artists. I hold a BFA degree in Fine Art and an MFA in Creative writing from the University of Washington. I studied painting with Jacob Lawrence, Michael Spafford and Eugene Pizzuto, among others. I studied poetry writing with Linda Bierds, Nelson Bentley, Heather McHugh, Richard Kinney, and David Waggoner, among others.