I work to make visible some combination of color and paint application, often with line or pattern, and as I work I produce paintings on paper that I pin to the walls of my studio. This installation grows until I run out of wall space or the project reaches resolution. Then the wall installations are dismantled and the pieces are mounted onto canvas or board. When the walls are covered, my work space is the world as I want it: safe, and full of color and light.

I have arrived over the years at an abstract and minimal format as the most satisfying way to use color and paint. I work with paintings in series or groups because what I want to make visual is best revealed when a number of pieces come together unified by a single vision. I employ a variety of media with acrylic paint as the foundation. Important aspects of the process are underpainting and glazing with transparent paint layers, techniques that date from the fifteenth century. In the year 2000, I started incorporating “found” materials such as wallpaper and other commercially printed papers into my paintings. Soon after that, I started making my own printed collage materials which led me to where I am today.

This is the process illustrated below:

I make a painting on paper.

I take a digital photo or scan the painting and load it into my computer.

I manipulate this image in a computer program (usually Adobe Photoshop) and make variations of the original, which can include shifting color, enlarging of detail and cropping.

I print these versions with my inkjet printer using archival inks.

I take these “underprintings” back to the studio to enhance and strengthen using paint glazes and one or several of the following: oil pastel, powder pastel, graphite, colored pencil, collage and gouache.

When these pieces are finished I assemble them into paintings. I include in this mix the original painted pieces and some that are painted expressly to complement and support the others. This orchestration of various elements into paintings involves judgments about scale, proportion, color and surface. It is immensely rewarding to see the final works take shape. When the composed groups are resolved, I adhere them to canvas or board and coat them with several layers of acrylic mediums and varnishes to protect the finished painting.

The best moment in the course of this process is when there are a great many of these pieces pinned to the studio walls just before being dismantled and reborn into their final form.