Color has always been the center of my work. My palette comes from a childhood candy store: candy buttons, Sweetarts, licorice allsorts, jelly-bean pinks and yellows, lollipop greens and oranges.

Magic Beans began during a period of profound personal loss, when black entered the paintings for the first time. The candy colors now push back against fields of black and gray that threaten to swallow anything lighthearted. The beans became something I planted deliberately, seeds of a hopeful future set against the dark. The paintings hold two truths at once: the weight of grief and the choice of joy.

That choice is not neutral. In a culture soaked in bullying and vitriol, I want to trample darkness with love, joy and optimism. Each painting is a dare to rise above the forces that diminish us, a celebration of life, and a stand for inclusivity, diversity and love.

I’m a Massachusetts-born abstract painter. I earned my BFA and MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. My influences include Corita Kent, Florine Stettheimer and NECCO wafers. Recent exhibitions include “The Shape of Things” at Rocky Neck Cultural Center in Gloucester and “Feral Joy” at Kingston Gallery in Boston. I’m a member of the Cambridge Art Association and work from Studio 211 at Lincoln Studios in Waltham.