INTERVIEW

Q: “What kind of art do you do?”
A: Maybe I could call them abstract or non-verbal prayers.

Q: "But not all of your work is abstract ? You seem to swing back and forth between abstraction and figuration. Don't I see a continual return to the landscape?"
A: Yes ...and the shifts usually take months or years. I do have an ongoing drawing practice...that often brings references to the landscape. My process values experience over interpretation, and feeling over explanations.

Q: "Can you say that in another way?"
A: It's as though I take dictation from nature...including my own. It's what presents itself within each new exploration. For example 2012 was a major shift. Alone and exhausted from travelling I became curious about the nature of time with only the breath as a measurement. I could only return to making the simplest mark. The dot series began. This leads to quantum explanations of reality. The way I know how to understand is through art. Returning again and again to the question...repeating patterns developed...along with more questions about what is random?

Q: "Then is it these theories, scientific theories, that influence you most?"
A: I wouldn't say that...I base my work in landscape. Mostly beginning  with deliberate references to nature, memories...my own photographs or sketches (like many of us I loved  drawing as a child).
There have been years at a time when I began and ended each day with a walk at the ocean. Always following the light on the horizon with the islands and mountains appearing and disappearing in the clouds. Of course there is the repeating activity of the shoreline, the repetition of the tides...waves...erosion. So many recurring patterns.

Q: "Is this the repetition you have written about?"
A: Yes, I think these reflections have been retained, understood somehow, and have now become part of what the rows of dots and of circles I refer to.

Q: "I suppose I'm asking...are these intended as narratives, and if so, how are they determined?"
A: Actually no narrative content is intended but personal and cultural experiences do seems to add associations and evoke meanings. This introduces an issue I find fascinating...how are narratives determined and is there an aspect of perception that is prior to naming? But I won't go there now.

Q: "OK, I understand you have painted all your life. What keeps you going?”
A: There is this continuing call to address the mystery of the abundant beauty surrounding us ..  Sometimes  I get closer to it...creating  a 'yes', but it is somehow partial. I am at a place now where I want to affirm the connectivity...at least how I experienced it.
Yes, I want to share these explorations. The experience of all things being connected...of Oneness. That's the best way I can say it .   
We don't need technology to access our deepest and most intimate selves.