Introduction (Long Form)

“The universe as we observe it is the only reasonable starting point in cosmology.”

Stephen Hawking

Mystical musings, messy interactions, provisional notions, and pleasures. I’ve been trying to find a way to put paint into words for years, but it always remains one step ahead of me. The elements of a painting make no sense to a logical mind, like an equation that mixes its units, yet occasionally add up to spaces that hold together my disparate thoughts. The only way I know how to do it is to place one mark on a surface at a time and see where it leads …

That seems like enough said, but for the sake of clarity I’ll continue:

First to mention is the subject. Whether planned or unplanned, physical or imagined, it’s the lifeblood of a painting. Perhaps nothing matters more because as Del Close (one of the early gurus of modern improv) put it, “My friends, you are all under the misconception that you are the most important person on the stage. You are not. Your scene partner is.”

Next, my approach depends upon what the poet Wallace Stevens called the “morality of the right sensation,” or believing in sensory experiences that are clear, vivid, and deeply felt, rather than mediated by artificial doctrines.

This feels much different than the way morality is usually discussed in art, but seems, to me, equally relevant because it suggests that a painting is no more truthful than the honesty of its marks.

I don’t like to stray too far from mark-making as it’s never an afterthought for a painter. The way paint feels, the medium, the brush’s touch upon the surface or the wipe of a rag, and the way these materials somehow add up to light and air, and a feeling of space.

To this I add a desire to see the world simply, with a bit of seeing-things-for-the-first-time reverence and awe, and to converse with it through this inherently lovely gooey wondrous elemental substance I squeeze onto a palette.

When this happens, and something about a subject is revealed through the paint, it feels like an act of grace. Such moments can’t be predicted. Although the process to get there can be slow, messy, and inefficient, it’s my nature to be suspicious of any response that feels unwarranted or premature.

In this uncharted way, a painting becomes the sum of countless thoughts and elaborations, hesitations, uncertainties, affirmations, and frankly, a lot of inconsistencies. But as the poet A. R. Ammons once wrote to a friend, “No, I don’t like a poem too perfect & beautiful, but flawed and great.”

I like to think my paintings are what happens when curiosity collides with reality, the trees talk back, and cosmic forces run amok. The funny thing about art is that it will succeed with or without a coherent argument. What emerges in my paintings is a quiet, persistent state of consciousness, both a reflection of nature and a liberation of the mind from nature.