Artist Statement: ​

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Born in Chicago in 1950, I was fascinated by both art and the sciences. While my most recent focus has been on watercolor, I have worked extensively through mediums such as stained glass, acrylic, and photography.

 

“Throughout the course of my life I have been attracted to science and the arts. The underlying architecture of the universe is being drawn out through scientific inquiry. This is a great thing that elevates the human condition. However, there is an entire realm of human experience that simply cannot be mapped without the subjective and emotional. I believe that good art serves to express that ineffable section of life. When you develop work in the context of art there is no individual, objectively correct answer as in mathematics: there is only a progression of increasingly elegant solutions.”

 

While time investment in actual creation of a new piece is staggering, much of the work has been done before brush touches canvas. I spend days exploring and photographing to find a subject that fits my compositional standards for beauty and underlying meaning before identifying reference material for a new painting.  I then select my subject based on the advantages it provides to the aesthetic I wish to pursue.

 

“One of the main reasons I decided to apprentice in and learn watercolor is the unique and organic nature of this medium. It moves and changes in unexpected ways, forcing expansion of or retreat from new elements in a piece. There is also a fundamental difference in approach from many other mediums: ideally, white space is left untouched, encouraging development from essentially nothing.”

 

“I want to emphasize that these are only two prominent aspects of watercolor.  Like most forms of art, the medium is complex beyond imagining and cannot be perfectly mastered. I have spent five years studying with an exceptional watercolorist - Henrietta Scott of Highland Raku Studios – and applied a lifetime of artistic sense and experience to merely scratch the surface.”

 

“Over the course of my genesis as an artist, I have reapproached the same challenge: how to communicate the abstract. I feel I have succeeded when a piece provokes a realization in even one observer that the universe is phenomenal, that it holds meaning and beauty. My strong desire and impetus in creating art is that my own experience enriches lives and persists outside of myself.

 

“I have lofty goals but no guarantees of perfect execution. Daily life often inhibits sensitivity and capacity for wonderment. I believe that this sensibility - developed through appreciation of art - is essential to living well and should be sought after.”

 

As Friedrich Nietzche stated, “We have art so that we don't die of reality.”

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