[ S T A T E M E N T ]

For over 20 years, my major projects have all started off with the stimulus of foreign travel. This newest body of work centers on my experiences the past two years drawing in museums and at historical sites in Spain. Returning to my studio, I began to use the raw ideas from the pages of my travel sketchbooks to begin paintings on panel, free to tinker with any historical material I had encountered. Eventually, some medieval beast, or other element in one of my scenes, became a stand-in for myself or for a member of my family. I started to regard each of the paintings-in-progress as a kind of narrative, a short story, or a poem.

I can depend on sturdy gessoed panel to hold up to months, sometimes years, of revisions. My process involves slowly building up an image, setting down thin layers of paint, ink, and pencil. If a panel is returned to my studio from a show, sometimes I can’t resist beginning to tinker with it just a bit, cautiously painting over part of one section, trying to get it right. Often as not, I keep going, more aggressively sanding its surface, gradually erasing my memory of the image---and of any effort, the hard work---that came before.