I conjure up "spirits from the vasty deep." Perhaps every painter seeks, through the medium of art, to explore what it means to be human. For me that inquiry has been conducted with whatever material comes to hand, be it paint collage, found objects or ephemeral material such as leaves and twigs. Leonardo de Vinci advised painters who lacked inspiration to contemplate with a reflective eye the cracks in an old wall. He said there is a map of the universe in the lines that time draws on these old walls. In order to describe a universe of this kind, created by chance and dream, the artist goes to live in it. And it is there amid the cracks that I find my inner world. Pencil lines, which I love, reflect the wanderings and whimseys in the cracked ceilings of my life. Come to think of it, the lines of my face could also tell a tale. We all have private worlds. I paint mine.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, "I conjure up spirits from the vasty deep." There is just one step up to my studio, but when I enter it a different persona takes over. This creature is daring, irreverent and free. Left outside is my ego, mindset and dreams of glory. This ship has come to explore uncharted waters. I have no preconceived ideas, especially with figurative work. I once had a show called "Who are those people and what are they doing on my canvas?" Many figurative paintings seem to come form an archetypal unconscious. When the empty canvas meets the empty mind anything can happen, but it cannot be planned or foreseen.
