You can't travel  far along the coast without seeing a Great White Heron, a Wood Stork or an egret or two.

In order for me to feel like I've painted well, to feel like I have finished a painting and there is nothing else I can do to it, I have to have some sort of connection to the subject.There has to be a sense of purpose. Place or location tied to memory is a strong influence for me. It was my fortune to return recently to  South Carolina (my home state) and the Lowcountry. It's the land of wading storks and herons, Piggly Wiggly grocery stores, majestic oaks dripping in Spanish moss, brain-scorching heat and humidity that melts into late afternoon bliss , Frogmore Stew and the most beautiful evening symphony of cicadas. One afternoon I strolled out onto a remote pier in the back waters of Charleston with my husband, my brother and his wife. There was another pier in the distance and at the end of it was a small open-air house. Inside was a man resting in a hammock. He was surrounded by the tidal waters rustling marsh grasses and  the salty humid air. Small boats were tied up to moorings nearby. A heron flapped it's wings in the distance. What joyful solitude! The Hammock House is meant to be a respite, a place of refuge from whatever lurks around dark corners in a world that seems to be so lost and yet filled with such hope.