I did not choose to be an artist, and like so many others my life was interrupted by children, family issues and now even grandchildren. Like so many others, I am never happy with my choice, my art, my sense of achievement. Like so many others, I am always compelled to return to the easel to try once more to follow in the footsteps of the giants who walked this path before me. Can anyone look at the “The Waterlily Pond” and not see what Monet saw? Can anyone gaze at “The Starry Night” and not feel a hint of the pain that created and then destroyed genius? So those are my influences – my life and the brilliance of the great impressionists. I may never reach as far, but the journey, so often lost along the way, will always return me to the path I was forced onto.