BRUSH, COLOR, STROKE, are fundamental elements of my painting vocabulary. This oeuvre originated with my move to the San Juan Islands of Washington State, where we were to design and build a new studio/home on the water. Holding firmly to lifetime roots well established in the soil of South Dakota while reaching toward the Pacific Ocean water was a challenge much like facing a large, new, white canvas.

The paintings that grew from these challenges reveal both celebration and times of struggle as each reflect my experiences. Painting in both studios, as I traveled back and forth between South Dakota and the San Juan Islands, I did not approach the canvas with a plan. Rather, I engaged each painting without ego boundaries, entering the painting so I do not know where I end and the image begins. With the accompanying music like that of Morton Feldman, Gyorgy Ligeti or Arnold Schoenberg, a communion occurs; I become the painting and that is when art happens. Both my joy and my angst are recorded, without intention, simply because the painting and I are one. So thru working, I learn about myself.

I will always observe and enjoy the difference between the warm, bright sunlight of South Dakota and the soft, blue-grey hues of the moist Northwest. Often autobiographic, my work is most certainly affected by the light, temperature, air and sounds of the region wherever I am.

Frequently I am preoccupied with a person or an issue; as my thoughts unravel, they subconsciously reform on the canvas where I process the information with brush, color, and strokes. It is only later that I reflect back to understand what I have done.

I consider it soul work; when I reach that sought after, liberating place of oneness with the work, I feel complete. It is then that I know who I am; it is my reason to paint. Jackson Pollock told it so well and his words tell my tale: “It is only when I am painting that I know what I am about.”