“Often I find myself standing somewhere gawking, trying to decipher the light in the clouds, the shadows on the side of a hill, or the colors in the moving ocean. Landscape painting is for me a way of spending time with, understanding, and honoring the places I love most.

Ever since a camping trip on the northwest coast of Scotland with my German aunt, uncle, and cousins when I was 14, I’ve returned again and again. I have had a kind of homesickness for its green, its storms, mountains, and turquoise ocean. I live in California where winter is my favorite season when I can paint the weather that blows in off the Pacific and piles up against our mountains.

My home is in Santa Barbara with my husband Michael and my two sons, Oliver and Eli.”

— Jessica Bortman