Rita’s love of color and texture began at an early age, when she discovered oils and pastels at Humes School of Art in her hometown of Rutherford, NJ. Watercolors were her form of expression in high school and college. And then, a hiatus until she happily traded her business career for paint, brushes and study at the Center for Contemporary Art, Hunterdon Museum of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. To her delight, her passion for creating art rekindled with ease. She is drawn to paint images that express the natural world, stimulate the senses and—in our fast-paced world—reveal moments that

invite us to pause and consider how extraordinary the ordinary can be. Inspiration comes from faraway travels, her sunny back porch or Sunday rides with her husband through Hunterdon County, NJ, in their 1960 Nash Metropolitan or 1959 Morris Minor Traveler. She works primarily in studio from digital photograph, so is often found with camera in hand, ready to capture the cool gray of a winter day, sun-warmed adobe against azure skies, soft red cardinal feathers, prickly yellow-green flower stems or the butter-colored stones of a Tuscan village. She wants her paintings to convey all the beauty, all the humor and all the mystery of the moment.