Artist Statement

Creating Art has been my touchstone for nearly half a century.

My studio occupies the entire basement of our old farmhouse.  Over the past four decades, I have gathered and organized a treasure trove of potential assemblage.  This space is my paint box.  There are works in progress everywhere to pick and choose from.

I am constantly generating new projects.  Everything is in a state of becoming.  I am spontaneous, experimental and prolific.  The old and new morph and interweave.

My assemblage process centers on the recruitment of found objects liberated from past functions.  They are reconfigured in a combination of whimsy, concept and symbol.  The work is often unified by areas of representational and abstract painting.

Works and their stories evolve in layers of personal meaning and imagery.  Projects begin with an impulse and end with an unexpected surprise.  It is natural for me to keep my work open ended.  This allows the viewer to imagine and create their own experience.  What they see is often a pleasant surprise to me.

As a picture framer by trade, the frame is always an integral extension of the work.  I don’t know what I would do without me.

When I work, my conscious mind is set aside.  In most cases, it is best for me to work with no mind and no goal.  The titles are given to me, seemingly out of the blue.

ON PERCEPTION

Artists create because they are driven to do so. They also understand that their work will only exist through the eyes and minds of the viewer. The irony or magic of this is that every viewer will have a totally personal and unique mental impression of the work. This is where art exists.

What we see is the result of our human biological evolution. What is out there, ask any physicist, is a happenstance of atomic and molecular activity, fleeting and impermanent.

Our selfness is a gift that we can direct and develop. By peering into the universe within, we may also seek the silent world of spirit.