My recent paintings are an infusion of my travel experiences, geologic training, passion for color, and love of mark-making. I am particularly drawn to the power of antiquity both natural and cultural—to its beauty, relevance and transformational capability. I sometimes find, in my travels, a powerful feeling of belonging in places I would least expect and, alternatively, a sense of homelessness in my own home. It is the essence of this root and drift that underscores my paintings. These ‘inner landscapes’ are as real to me as the paths I walk, and in this sense my images are not at all abstract.
    Living on the expansive shore of Lake Superior makes me sharply aware of its horizon and this orientation strongly defines these images. The lake’s ever changing mood provides a continual drama while the rhythms and cycles, storms and flat calm literally help me weather—and even enjoy—periods of intense doubt and anxiety.
    In my toolbox approach to painting I explore ways to conjure the power of place using suggestions of landscape, over painting with seals and bits of collage, and burying these with invented calligraphies and primitive marks. Often all is sanded down to the earliest layers and rebuilt—palimpsest both medieval and geological.  The final image is a combination of intense manipulation and what the paint itself decided to do.
    The luminous quality of the gloss surface lends resonance and depth, while the subtle metallics change with the light and lend the image a temporal as well as physical presence. In fairness to my paintings I should say that these crucial elements are lost in digitized format.
    I credit my training in the geological sciences for the appreciation I have for everything from earth’s dynamic processes, to nature’s exquisite forms, to an in-depth understanding of the origins of my paints. The beauty of science has greatly expanded my relationship to art and has liberated and grounded me as a process painter.