Artist's statement

I work in the tradition of representational modernism. I've always been committed to this beautiful work which reached its height of achievement in mid-century with Bonnard and Hopper, and has been continued into the present day by James Weeks, Richard Diebenkorn, William Bailey, and Stanley Lewis. In this tradition, painting aspires to poetry:  a fully realized world constructed from abstract elements – which always discloses itself as paint. There will be strangeness – strangeness as being, strangeness as beauty arisen from contact with a different kind of consciousness than our own, with motion, depth, openness, rhythm, and emotional color.

I am dazzled with the feeling of light and the mystery of ordinary things that call up fleeting and treasured memories of my childhood.

My paintings of houses begin with a walk in my neighborhood. I find—a bicycle in the weeds, a signpost, a bright pink house with a mermaid over the door. I set myself up on the street, beginning with charcoal drawings and then pastels.  Then, in my studio, I use the information for the big paintings and work back and forth revising the drawings, making endless revisions of the paintings. This can go on for years until each painting is a visual poem: a beautiful, mysterious process that unfolds over time.