I paint to interpret and preserve the spirit of experiences which have meaning to me. Three reoccurring themes are gender roles, the innate humor of life and the personalities of farm animals as metaphor for, and participants in, human experience. I am a lover of still life. My favorite tool is color. The brighter, bolder, and more luminous the better.

Sometimes I imagine us as sound waves containing unlimited opportunity to be glorious in volume, timbre, color, key and rhythm. Because we coexist on this planet, our lives’ melodies interact, generating harmonies of creativity and power, silence or (often) dissonance.

Seen above (and on front-page mastheads): Art by Melissa Hefferlin. Top/front-page: "Remnants of Joy and Disaster;" Middle: "Royal;" and Bottom: "First Red Dress."

Words above by Melissa Hefferlin. Read more here.