I was the only kid at my school with an alligator in my backyard. We called him Ally-George and fed him hot dogs and chicken. 

Having four older brothers kept me out of most trouble. I watched them and learned. It didn’t always help. When I was three years old my brother, a neighbor boy, and I decided it would be fun to play in our cousin’s motorboat which was stored in our garage. We were also keeping Ally-George, only a baby at the time, in a bathtub in the garage. It was dark under the oily tarp so we lit candles to see. This is one of my earliest memories, etched into my brain. As the tarp engulfed in flames my dress caught on the boat, and when I didn’t follow the boys the neighbor came back and helped me get free. Fortunately, the garage was detached from the house so only the garage burned down. When the fire fighters arrived, they were excited to find the healthy little alligator under the ashes of the destroyed garage, protected by the water. The photo of them holding our little alligator by the ruins of our garage made it into the local newspaper. Forced to find a new home for Ally-George, my dad built a small swimming pool in our back yard where he lived until we re-homed him when he was six feet long. 

But this story is not about our alligator. It’s about things I remember in my life that formed me.

When I was four years old and could reach the pedals, my dad taught me how to drive the tractor in the orchard. From kindergarten through my senior year, I would often come home from school and drive that old tractor. I learned the value of hard work, and I got paid a penny a minute. In high school it was also my job to irrigate the orchard. I loved to divert the water to our orchard, and then climb up the poles to clean out the clogged sprinklers.

At age five my dad brought home a German shepherd. Listening to the coyotes and other noises at night in the orchard scared me sometimes. (That’s what my dad said…I don’t remember ever fearing the coyotes) and he thought a big dog outside my window would make me sleep better. We named the shepherd Tuffy and he did give me a sense of security. I loved that dog and with all that loving my heart grew. 

With Tuffy, at my home in Upland from birth until I left for college

When I was eight, I camped at Forest Home and I decided to follow Jesus. This was the best decision of my life, and each year I have learned to trust him more.

At age eleven I dreamt of horses. I pleaded with my dad for two years until he finally agreed to put a breeding stallion with the three mares at Rancho Monte Vista, our property in the Sierra foothills near the small town of Springville, California. If one was impregnated, I could raise the foal. After the stallion had been removed for 13 months (normal gestation for a horse is 11 months) our 30-year-old mare birthed a surprise colt on Thanksgiving Day. He was our little miracle foal.  I knew my prayers had been answered. I named the colt Snow Flame because he was red and he was born in a rare Southern California snow. 

The first time I met Snowflame

My dad bought lumber to build a corral to house the mare and her foal in our backyard. It was my job to tear apart a neighbor’s fence and haul the lumber home. My dad saved money and taught me how to take nails out of boards all in one shot. One of my brothers, Jonathan, cut down three lemon trees and built the corral complete with a nice shelter for the horses to get out of the rain. I was feeling very blessed. 

We brought the mare and her colt from the ranch to their new home. On Christmas Eve my brother, Steve, awoke to a horrible cry. He grabbed the rifle and sprinted to the orchard to find Tuffy had dragged the colt out of the corral and was mauling the foal. Our vet stitched through the night. Totally incidentally, when the sun came up my mom saw spots all over my body. I was breaking out with chicken pox. We counted over a hundred stitches on the foal, and we also counted our blessings that the hole that punctured through the colt’s back thigh did not create any lameness. The vet gave us antibiotics to inject morning and evening for a month. My family’s first response was to re-home our offending German Shepherd, but my pleadings won out and my dad put a hot-wire under the corral’s lowest rail. This solved the problem of Tuffy, and when the colt was almost a yearling he gave Tuffy a strong kick that put an end to future fights. The colt and the dog became friends and the three of us went everywhere together.

Me with Snowflame & Andy with Jungle Music circa 1986 in the Springville orchards

My dad taught us to work hard, but he also taught us how to play. He noticed that God gave animals the need to play, and he believed that children, and even adults, needed play in their lives. He took us to the ocean and taught us how to surf. 

We spent a LOT of the summer at San Onofre

He took us to the mountains where we hiked and learned the names of all the wildflowers and even the bugs under the rocks. He taught us to suck the sweet nectar from the lemon blossoms, how to make a lizard catcher with only a tall blade of grass, and how to put the lizard to sleep by stroking its belly. 

With my four older brothers on a Montana hike

His love of God was as contagious as his love of nature.  Both my parents expressed their love of God by loving others. I remember one Christmas when all five of us kids were grown, and I asked my parents what they were doing for Christmas. Without a hint of sadness that none of their adult children or grandchildren would be with them that day, they explained their plans to drive several hours to deliver Christmas gifts to the family of one of my dad’s former students who had recently been released from prison.

My dad and mom

At seventeen I attended Westmont College in Santa Barbara. The classes were strenuous and challenged me to think. One class which affected me particularly gave me a new perspective of how my love of God and art joined together. I had been drawing and painting since childhood, but I didn’t have any idea why. In this class I came to believe, if the creator made us in his image, we reflect his nature when we create. It then follows that artwork need not be religious in subject matter or representational in design to bring the creator glory. Rather the very creative act itself speaks of his nature born in our hearts. 

During this freshman year Andy, my boyfriend of three years, and I met before breakfast every morning to pray. Because he was a senior and I a freshman, often the subject of our prayers was regarding our future: what he would do after graduation, and what course of study I would choose. It seemed prudent to follow a “practical” major in college. But Andy advocated for looking deeper when choosing the right path. He asked, “what do you love?” and when I said, “art” he responded, “then art is what you should pursue.” We had the same conversation many times my freshman year and he always had the same answer. I came to consider it a gift that at such a formative age my closest friend taught me to listen to my heart. 

Andy and I hiking in Yellowstone circa 1988

As we prayed, Andy also found direction. His heart was telling him his current track towards law school was not his calling. Instead he decided to work with youth at a church in Long Beach while taking classes at nearby Talbot School of Theology. Although we were young we decided to marry after he graduated. All three decisions took some guts, but if you don’t follow your gut you might miss out, so we moved confidently forward. 

These decisions landed me a short bus ride from Long Beach State University where I enrolled in their well-known art program. We made a little apartment our home for eight years  enjoying life to the full, working hard, playing hard (on the volleyball court or in the ocean) and making wonderful friends.   I bought a former race horse named Jungle Music off the Los Alamitos circuit, and I trained him at a nearby stables so we could have a new trail horse at the Springville ranch.  

Andy riding Jungle Music once he was moved to Rancho Monte Vista

Our daughter, Caroline, riding Jungle Music years later

Following completion of an art degree I wove and dyed yarns for a local textile designer, I designed gift wrap,  and I made displays for Toyota’s design research center.  I was growing as an artist, all the while knowing at some point I wanted to transition to fine art. 

While I was working as a freelance artist in southern California,  Andy finished his theological training. Shortly afterward I gave birth to our first-born child, Luke, and when he was five months old, Andy accepted a call to the senior pastor position at a church in Sunnyvale, California. Not only was Andy sure this was a call to him, but my heart felt called as well, to serve the church. During our 12 years there I continued doing graphic artwork as well as some drawing and painting, but my focus was my family and the church.  While in the Bay Area the Lord gave us three more beautiful children, Timothy, John, and Caroline, and the church ministered right back at us by loving our kids. 

Andy & I with our four children...our best creative project ever!

The Lord blessed that church, and twelve years later, when it was strong, Andy was called to pastor a church in Corvallis, Oregon, with a need for new leadership. For twelve years Andy blessed the congregation with his whole heart, pouring into others and helping them realize their own gifts and follow God. Our years in Corvallis were transitional for me. I loved being a pastor’s wife and I enjoyed my ministries in the church, but the feeling I wanted to paint more welled up inside me. Caroline was now in kindergarten, and I began painting outdoors at beautiful locations around the Willamette Valley. In my soul I knew this would increasingly be my call, yet I struggled because I also loved pouring into people through ministry and time felt short to do both justice. I prayed. I sought the scriptures. I journaled, asking the Lord if this calling to paint were really from him. He confirmed the calling through scripture, prayer, wise friends, and through Andy who has always added fuel to my dedication to create art.

In 2015 Andy asked me where I wanted to paint and I said Central Oregon. We moved to Prineville, and in 2016 Andy became associate pastor at Powell Butte Christian Church, another loving congregation. It was during his ministry at this church Andy began showing signs of cognitive impairment, and was later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. In 2021 he needed to take early retirement due to the disability. This has been difficult for him, but he is handling his transition with grace and dignity, working hard at the time-consuming protocol given by his doctors. 

For several decades my passion for Andy’s ministry helped fuel Andy’s vision for his calling, but God worked out a reversal for us, as his role as a vocational minister of the gospel ended, and my work as a vocational artist increased. 

Andy is still passionate I paint, and I am passionate that when people look at my paintings, they see God’s hand in my life. The good times and the hard times are both from his loving hand.

Painting the Pacific Grove Coast