At Nepenthe, we have long had The Free Box, a place where people have dropped off stuff they no longer need and picked up stuff that others are passing on (think books, kitchen ware, clothing, even furniture.) In Great Britain, Repair Cafes are springing up – places where you can bring something to be fixed,[…]

Monterey Museum of Art May 14-August 23, 2020 Influences When I was a child I remember my uncle Kaffe returning from his travels, hanging a bedsheet from the rafters of Nepenthe and projecting slides of his knitwear to the collective gasps of the audience – dinner guests, employees, and family members all. In my twenties,[…]

How do we paint together? Kaffe lives in London, I live in Big Sur. He works in acrylic, I work in oil. He is a textile designer, I am a fine art painter. We come together around color, and we find all the color we could want in the still life. In my mother’s house[…]

This year painting has become for me a form of meditation — the studio, a sanctuary — the work a solace. These new pieces come from a place of sinking into the moment, using the tools of observation and rendering to center me in the now. A new way of working with color has made[…]

I was born in 1963, in Big Sur, California, and grew up at my family’s restaurant, Nepenthe. I remember so many moments from childhood, like stills from a film. Peeking through the curtains to see everyone dancing down below. Astrology parties with free birthday cake and champagne and dancing under the stars. Beating tin can[…]

We’re coming back! Join us at Carmo on Julia Street for Tom’s “I Can’t Draw and You Can Too!” class December 28 1-4pm. The class is $60 and includes all materials. My slideshow “Awaken The Artist Within” follows at 4:30-5:30. Also at Carmo, it’s free and will send your home dreaming in full color! Meantime[…]

Before I was a painter, I was a writer, and the mother of two, a dedicated volunteer, and a community activist. When I picked up the brushes for the first time, I had to steal one day a week out of my already hectic schedule. I’d put my kids on the school bus and head[…]

Kaffe taught me to seek beauty, and to find it in color. The beauty of a weird beige plastic card table against an array of singing red bowls in my mother’s house. The hallucinatory pink wall in a sea of white on a walk through winter in Vermont Before I was ever a painter he[…]