For me, I want to make beautiful space. Painting intuitively, without a plan, akin to the abstract expressionists, I embrace the unexpected and unimagined throughout the process. Because beauty is ineffable, I only know it when I see the canvas transformed.
When you look at my paintings you may see fragments of nature-infused imagery coming into and out of being. I also want you to see paint scrapped away, brushstrokes, veiled passages, globs, drips, splatters. And be reminded someone’s hand made this to share with you.
The painted space becomes beauty and mystery of its own – an invitation to let your memory , imagination wander and wonder.
The source of my inspiration I neither fully understand nor can explain. But I know it somewhere within myself through memory , imagination and hope. This source is passionate enough to bloom flowers in the snow. Powerful enough to speak the sun’s rising or setting. Each painting I make is a prayer contemplating the beauty and mystery of this source I call God’s love.
My Art
My Lover speaks, “Arise, my beautiful one, and come with me.”
Song of Solomon 2:10
I grew up in Washington, a small town on the banks of the Pamlico River in Eastern North Carolina where Camellias do bloom in winter.
Along with this picture in my mind, one of my first memories is enjoying the feel of scratching a pin into our wood windowsills. This is my first awareness that we can respond to indescribable sensations by making beautiful marks with our hands.
My Story
My mother fanned this flame giving me an art box filled with colorful paint. My father suggested pursuing art in college. They understood this passion before I.
Fearing an arts education meant abandoning “my voice,” I received degrees in media production from UNC-CH and a Masters in Teaching from UVA’s Curry School. Leaving careers in broadcast sales and teaching kindergarten, I chose to stay home when our first daughter was born.
Life as expected. Then it changed. Not an ending but a new beginning.
Within a span of twenty-four months, my father died of cancer and our two daughters were born. In the following few years, I admitted I was powerless over the alcohol I’d become accustomed to gloss bouts of depression and anxiety. God’s love gave me hope, transforming my chaos and confusion into promise and renewal. This grace gives me aliveness: the freedom to love, forgive, and create.
It was during this season that my desire to draw and paint reawakened, and 9/11 galvanized it. I nurture this call by spending time with God, continued formal study, and community with trusted artists.
Photography of Ellen and artwork by Doug Pitts
