NOTE: It's important to take your time looking at these paintings, to go slowly and let your eyes and brain digest them over time. I've never been interested in making paintings that are easy to take in or that are about one thing. I've always loved paintings that can be discovered and then rediscovered, seeing different things each time you look at them. This request is easier asked than achieved in today's abundance of too much information and having no patience or time to comprehend it all. Of wanting instant access to everything but not wanting to savor it much before jumping to the next accessible thing. It took me over 11 years to create these paintings so try not to look at them in 11 minutes or even 11 hours. This website is going to be here for a long time so there's no hurry and it will make a huge wonderful difference in the end.
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My intention and my work has always been about reflecting my personal truth, which is pretty standard for most artists. My experience of life has always been surrounded by wonder and appreciation. I've always been curious about not just what I saw around me but about how it all came together and worked. Since childhood I've always appreciated the stuff that we humans have all constructed to make our lives operate easier and more efficiently. I always quietly assumed that we were all here to work together in order to celebrate our creative minds and to wonder our way into the next creation. It just seemed obvious...
My intention and my work has always been about reflecting my personal truth, which is pretty standard for most artists. My experience of life has always been surrounded by wonder and appreciation. I've always been curious about not just what I saw around me but about how it all came together and worked. Since childhood I've always appreciated the stuff that we humans have all constructed to make our lives operate easier and more efficiently. I always quietly assumed that we were all here to work together in order to celebrate our creative minds and to wonder our way into the next creation. It just seemed obvious...
Acrylic and noodles on canvas - 32 in. x 40 in.
Thursday 5/12/1988 - Private Collection
Acrylic with string, rice & noodles on canvas - 36 in. x 42 in.
Friday 6/10/1988 - Private Collection
Acrylic on canvas - 24 in. x 30 in.
Thursday 7/28/1988 - Private Collection
Humans creating together is a form of celebration for me. Of course our mutual creations can lead to many other things too, but the fact that we can make something tangible from a simple idea is a marvelous adventure and is relatively endless in its potential and possibility. I am driven to bliss just by this fact, and have been excited by it since I discovered its reality as a child. We can only grow more and learn more and become more than we were before we considered the new idea. And the act of creation from ideas doesn't stop or have a shut-off feature - it just goes on and on without end.
When I paint I see these little worlds of possibility within each new brushstroke creating a new part of the composition. Little worlds in combining the various colors with various choices that together determine where to brush next, where not to brush, and when to stop. The paintings actually guide me to essentially paint themselves. They become their own beings in the time that it takes for me to bring them forth. I only have to pay attention as the painting evolves into a living reflection of what I see and what it wants to become...
Acrylic on canvas - 42-1/2 in. x 26-5/8 in.
Saturday 9/3/1988 - Collection of the Artist
Acrylic and string on canvas - 48 in. x 42 in.
Wednesday 12/4/1988 - Private Collection
Broken Canvas No. 1
Acrylic on embroidered cotton - 32 in. x 22 in.
Friday 1/20/1989 - Private Collection
I was feeling really happy and confident about what I was painting. I was surprised at what was taking place in my work and in my mind. Prior to completing these paintings I didn't know I had the freedom to just paint and have a composition appear before me that would then help me decide what to do next as I painted it. It was an exhilerating exchange happening between myself and the act of painting the pictures.
This confidence led me to start to incorporate imagery from some of my photographs again, as seen in paintings no. 14-16 above. This time I didn't have to figure out ahead of time what the compositions were going to look like as I did in paintings no. 1-3, all I needed was to refer to the photos and simply build the colors, forms and compositions around and within the photographic imagery. I loved knowing that I could take the so-called reality of a photographic image and easily meld it into the painted abstractions from my imagination.
Broken Canvas No. 2
Acrylic on stretched cotton over plywood - 17-3/4 in. x 20 in.
Sunday 2/5/1989 - Collection of the Artist
Broken Canvas No. 3
Acrylic on stretched cotton over plywood - 35-1/2 in. x 33 in.
Orig. Finished Thursday 3/9/89, Reworked and Finished Thursday 1/3/1991
Collection of the Artist
Acrylic and noodles on canvas - 42 in. x 36 in.
Wednesday 4/23/1989 - Private Collection
Acrylic on embroidered cotton - 18 in. x 12 in.
Thursday 5/25/1989 - Private Collection
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