Painting for me is a means to better navigate the world and more clearly articulate my experience within it. I don’t begin a painting with intention about content: I have intention about quieting myself and heightening receptivity. I am trying to have a conversation when I paint, to listen to what is just beyond what I hear and see. I try to follow the lines and the colors and they most often lead me into consideration of horizons, trees, clouds, earth formations, and since living here by the Haw, rivers flowing through it all.
I believe the essences of things are usually elusive and ineffable, and gift of the arts (for me, painting) is that they bring us nearer, help us to dwell for awhile in the vicinity of essence. This is always my wish with the painting.