I paint or draw from the way I perceive composition, texture and color.

My environment, whether on vacation or at home, inspires me to change or alter images on paper or canvas.

I paint watercolors often from my travel photographs or I create acrylic abstracts from my imagined images.

My paintings are dated approximately from 2000-2012. The price range is $300-$2000.

As a figurative painter, my interest is in the representation of human beings with all their troubles and preoccupations. Spiritual, material, social and sexual aspects of our lives are in the mainstream of this troubles. Gods and goddesses of Mythology are not that different but like cartoon characters, they do everything with excess. This is the exaggeration that had inspired many artists and this is why I have so much fun interpreting these epic events crowded by so many weird (but nevertheless so human) creatures.

I am an assemblage artist.  I construct my art, often by building boxes containing "saved" bits of Americana:  an old toy, a broken gun, a worn baby shoe, a souvenir salt & pepper shaker that someone saved their whold life.  These "saved" objects tell stories about aspects of our American culture's history, a history many do not know.  Often this shared history includes poverty, racism, inferior roles for women, war and child abuse.  I weave a story about someone's life from these old objects to draw the viewer in to witness our contemporary culture's subconscious prejudices.

Forty-five years ago, I came across the Golden Gate Bridge on a Greyhound Bus. I was determined to be a painter and 45 years later, I am still painting. One of my friends asked me if I found inspiration from any of the places that I lived in as a Navy brat. Well, of course I do; all of us are formed by our past. But the inspiration is not necessarily direct. If I have any motto as an artist, it's this verse by T.S. Elliot: We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

I see these organic pieces sprouting far below the earth to later explode through the surface, catching strolling bystanders unawares. Or washing up onto the beaches from the bowels of the ocean, surprising the everyday shell collector. The reaction I most hope to provoke is, “What IS that?”--that the viewer feels they’ve uncovered something unknown in the flora (or maybe even fauna) kingdom, and wishes to know more.

Several years ago, I began working primarily with the figure, mostly in the form of busts and heads. The early series has a particular personal energy: as a body of work, it feels quiet; there is a sense of stilled breath.

In the current work, this moment of quiet has become the focus. I have been using subtle gestures, specifically hand positions of holding and grasping, to explore the relationship of the body - our most direct experience of physical reality - to hidden, inner aspects of spirit and the world beyond physical.

Some of the figures have become quite understated; they take on a quality I think of as shadow, or ghost. The birds themselves, starting as only delicately visible, have begun taking flight away from the human form altogether, perhaps appearing in that moment when form separates from spirit.

My focus is the human figure. My monotypes, colographs and linocuts are generally bright colors and abstracted images of the figure intended to evoke a recognizable feeling, thought or state of being. My etchings are more subdued in color and representational in style.

Painting is a joyful practice for me. I delight in color, texture, design, and decisive mark-making.
My paintings are colorful, bold and energetic. I prefer to paint from direct observation because there is a surprise element in the immediate response to and discovery of the subject. Particularly when painting en plein air (outdoors, on site) or from a still life.