Artist Statement

I consider myself lucky to have several creative disciplines. There’s art direction and design where I develop solutions for clients, work with deadlines, and focus on clarity and understanding. There’s photography which is about staying curious and having a disciplined eye. As a writer, I often explore the human condition through literary fiction and poetry. And then there’s painting which is about gesture, movement, color, texture, shapes, imagery, and creative expression.

I’m passionate about the work I create in my studios here in Virginia. I often work in layers, so erasures and scrapings are a part of my process as the painting progresses in an intuitive manner. I find that I’m drawn to the palimpsest approach which embraces the eroding and layering of surfaces as a representation of memories and lived experiences. I’m most interested in the creative process and artistic expression while drawing inspiration from memories, nature, music, and literature.

Painting is an ongoing engagement with images and ideas that are sometimes difficult to fully understand. Being an artist means that I carve out time and energy in order to explore and to create something from the puzzle pieces. Creative expression is a personal process, an inner dialogue. It is about making choices, taking some risk, exploring materials, and trusting your hand.

There are many ways to seek truth. Living and working as an artist is one way to carry on as an absurd optimist by reaching, gesturing, creating, paying attention, remaining curious. It’s a way of seeing the world, and a damn fine way to live.