A flicker of light on a shoulder, a splash of sun on a summer hat, flakes of light in a stand of maples, a shower of pink late afternoon sun on a field . . . these are the moments that attract me.  Light does more than merely illuminate.  It brings focus to a time when beauty is suddenly evident.  My goal as an artist is to find those times and places where beauty is not only evident, but startling and suddenly present.

I have always been fascinated by the qualities of light and shadow, with the magic of color, the defining tones of nature.  So, the first part of my process is to allow myself to be startled and surprised by what I see.  When I’m clear about what I’m seeing, the focus presents itself.  I begin by breaking shapes down into light and dark values, and often do considerable squinting to find those basic values.  Next, working on a toned canvas or paper, I begin to create a brush or pastel drawing using a single color to create the larger, dark and dominant shapes.  I work with the brush or pastel much like charcoal, assigning differing intensities to the shapes.  After this, I take the monochromatic piece and start putting color onto it to begin bringing out the smaller shapes.   It’s a selective process, because every stroke has to support the original values.  I might, for example, work on a house that has varying areas of warm and cool tones, but by squinting again I can often find out how much of that house shows up and how much goes into the background.  That’s a value gradient that I will try to stay true to as I work.  The hues may be slightly different, but I will try to keep the values of those hues very similar, and continue to return to the sense of the original values that I found.  My painting process always moves from the very simple to the somewhat more complicated, but those basic values that I discovered remain my predominant focus.

It’s always difficult to know when a painting is finished, but since I don’t like to overwork things I usually know it’s time to stop when I’ve answered my questions, when the original focus is fully supported.  If I paint for too long, the result begins to seem fussy and has more to do with elaboration than support.  I am very attracted to minimal language and always try to find that perfectly economical stroke, the single gesture that speaks clearly and fully without pulling attention away from the original vision.

I’ve learned to draw well, and it permits me to be very serious about design and draftsmanship.  It also allows me freedom from conscious effort, allows the gesture to come from within rather than from a toolbox full of technique.  The real artistic moment comes when a well-trained hand and a clear eye work in concert with a full heart.  Nothing makes me as passionately human as a moment when those three are connected.  The challenge is to stay in that magical moment and search for the one true stroke, to illuminate the sudden and startling beauty of this world.  I am an artist by necessity rather than choice, a continual student of nature, eager for the challenges that the search for beauty demands of me.