ArTIST BIO

Painting is a prayer. There is a quality, a suspension of activity, even the breath may be stilled, when the painter starts a new work. Confronted with the nakedness of the empty canvas, the mind comes alive with ideas and hope. But to begin, one must surrender. Become focused and purposeful. The outcome can never be known before one starts. “It’s like walking off a cliff without a prayer,” a great painter friend tells me. “Then, of course, there is humility. There is nothing to soften the blow of a potential fall.”

“Over and over the cycle repeats itself. ‘Unanswered yet?’ Robert Browning writes, ‘Nay do not say ungranted. Perhaps your part is not wholly done.’ And we begin once again.”

Leech has taken studio classes at The University of New Mexico and has studied privately with Brian O’Connor, Leo Neufeld, Tony Ryder, David Leffel, Ned Jacob, and Sherrie McGraw.

Selected Group Shows
Albuquerque Museum Miniature Invitational
Albuquerque, NM 2005
American Women Artists Annual Show
Santa Fe, NM 2004
Taos Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition
Taos, NM 2003

Awards & Honors
American Women Artists Annual Show
Award of Merit
2004
Taos Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition
Award of Excellence
2003