The earliest memory I have of making art was when I was 8 or 9 years old. I was in 4th grade and one of our first projects in art class was to make a drawing of a book we had read during the summer. A typical boy, I had read some baseball book and proceeded to draw a bat and ball and maybe a few other objects. When I finished I was dejected and embarrassed by my effort. Sloppy, poorly drawn objects, placed randomly on the page. It wasn't really a picture, no composition. None of the objects related to the other pictorially or as a narrative. I remember looking at the drawing of the star artist in our class and becoming acutely aware of my failure as an artist. However, not to be discouraged, I sat down and did a drawing of mountains, sky, trees, a fence, and maybe a house. Totally invented–an invented landscape. When the teacher asked the book I had read, I lied and told her it was a book called "Green Mountains" that I had read when I visited my grandparents in Vermont. Despite my satisfaction with the drawing, I felt ashamed that I had made something up and lied about it. I avoided art for years.

Looking back I see the wisdom of that little boy. The playfulness and courage of invention. Invented forms, invented shapes. The joy of a squiggle. The effortless action of a gesture. I use them all in my work now. A process that begins with a doodle or a spontaneous automatic drawing in ink or an arrangement of torn pieces of paper. Through selection and repetition is transformed and begins to take on a life of its own–to tell a story; to communicate a feeling– like a poem or a piece of music.

Like a poem, my paintings begin with an observation, a feeling, a hunch or an idea, a memory and are then refined so that every color, every shape and form, every gesture is woven together. Like music my paintings begin with a theme or a phrase and evolve endlessly as an improvisational performance. Working with egg-oil emulsions, oil-resin varnishes, and oil-resin-beeswax, I build the paintings up in layers to create a luminosity or light that glows from within the painting. I make my own mediums as a way to connect with my materials, to appreciate them, to know them. Like taking apart a watch to put it back together to see the inside. Discovery, curiosity, playfulness....