Acquired Virtue follows Inherent Vice,
an exhibition at the Manitou Art Center in Colorado now continued online.
In conservation, inherent vice is the tendency of an object to deteriorate because of what it is made from. Acquired virtue suggests something else: that value, wisdom, character, and beauty need not be inherent. They can be acquired through time.
The most valuable things are not always those that begin perfect.
They are the things that become.
This exhibition is a lifetime retrospective—not a chronology, but an ecology of works that have lived, traveled, changed, and gathered meaning alongside me. Each piece records something I could not have learned earlier, through a perspective time taught me to see.
None of these virtues were inherent.
THEY WERE ACQUIRED.
SELECTED WORKS
An ecology, not a chronology.
More works as the collection grows.
- Barely Me
A work that has changed with with me, carrying earlier selves beneath later decisions. Begun 2012Altered 2016, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026Colorado → WashingtonOil, acrylic, graphite, rain.Status: Continuing - The Waves Do Not Crash Here
watercolor A meditation on gentleness, shelter, and the places where force need not become impact. - Where the Rocks Give Way
watercolor A study in persistence: what appears soft may reshape what appears immovable.
THE LIFETIME AUCTION
Available, but not yet leaving.
Every work remains with the artist during her lifetime. Each piece may receive bids. Ownership transfers upon the artist’s death.
ACQUIRED VIRTUE 