Burton's Bay Kids T-Shirt

The setting sun lights the tips of the loblolly pines on Burtons Bay, Accomack County, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

At the age of 50, with no formal training and no previous desire, I began painting. I recognized immediately that I loved it and was good at it - better than I’d ever been at anything. I was working in New York when my mother died of cancer. Broken by her death, and looking for anything that would help me put myself back together, I grabbed onto the idea of painting when it came to me out of the blue one day. Once I started, I recognized that I’d found what I was supposed to do with my life. Six months after my mother died, my boss, who was a dear friend, died. Four months later, the newspaper job I’d thought I would have forever was eliminated. A year later, I began painting full-time, starting with a cross-country trip to paint...