My aesthetic values developed in part from my years of making three
dimensional objects with clay. Working with such a plastic medium it was
natural to take an intuitive approach, letting texture and form guide the
creative process. The considerable energy expended was always evident
in the final results—work that captured the rhythm of the physical process.
That same fresh intuitive approach is what I bring to my paintings, only now
there is a narrative inherent in the richly textured works on paper and canvas.
One of the great advantages of making art is the time it gives me to organize
my thoughts and give coherence to my ramblings. Consciousness for me is
messy, cluttered with words and images that are inextricably bound together.
I have come to a method of painting that relies on my intuitive self, that foregoes
conceptualizing and most preconceptions and that is guided by energy with
vigorous application with squeeze bottles of fluid acrylics and tubes of heavy
acrylic paint spread with putty knives, palette knives, foam brushes, rubber
shapers and brushes. And yet it is finally dependent on what I see in the painting
process, how I “edit” it and the connections I make, many of which reference the
parallel creative language between writing and painting. Word play, the line, and
narrative still have a say in my work. I like to think I am telling stories, making
music and discovering new connections with my paintings. Maybe they are
narratives as told my mimes and often the meaning is just out of reach and yet
that is what makes them worth telling. Each painting has its own rhythm, a
discordant lyricism as if Thelonius Monk were having his sway with whatever
musical muse was in my head, carrying the viewer around the worlds being
created. One line connects with another but disconnects from yet another as
you move between the animate and inanimate, between the abstract and the
imagistic, populated by networks of plant-like forms, flying and swimming beings,
human forms and faces and combinations of all of them.
Exhibitions/Bio
BIRTHDATE: February 22, 1944
EDUCATION: B.A. in pre-medicine and English literature, Northwestern
University, 1965.
M.A. in English literature, Northwestern University, 1966.
Three years on Ph.D., University of California Riverside,1966-69
ONE PERSON SHOWS
Sunbow Gallery, Portland, Oregon; April, 1978.
Hadler-Rodriguez Gallery, New York City; Ocotber, 1980.
Dorothy Weiss Gallery, San Francisco, California; November, 1983.
Maple Hill Gallery, Portland, Maine; February, 1984.
American Hand, Washington D.C.; April, 1984.
Contemporary Crafts, Portland, Oregon; May, 1986.
Healdsburg Center For The Arts, Healdsburg, California; January, February 2011.
Hall-Spassov Gallery, Bellevue, Washington; September 2016.