My egg tempera paintings incorporate naturalistic imagery with feminine cultural symbols and everyday objects to explore archetypes from myths, dreams, and fairy tales. Plants, animals, objects, and colors are chosen for their symbolic associations as well as for the way in which their forms will act as design elements within the picture plane. The images capture moments in time where these stories play out through metaphors. Women interact with birds, snakes, insects, and flowers in a style that can best be described as magical realism. Here, close natural observation of a specific moment of human/nature contact combines with symbols to create a heightened sense of experience.