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Painting is a process of inquiry and reconciliation — of bringing together divergent, sometimes complex experiences, clarifying and transforming them. To paint is to be deeply engaged in observation, analysis, physical effort, and feeling. And through this practice we not only represent the subject we see (or imagine) at this moment, but call upon memory and our relationship to the natural world.

For the past several years I have been making paintings based upon watershed and coastal landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and Atlantic Northeast. Rivers and glacial pools are especially powerful to me because they encompass our remaining wilderness, yet also give evidence of its alteration from human activity.

My landscape paintings are derived from my observation of water as a carrier of the transformative power of nature. My interest in the way water makes contact with its surroundings has led me to contemplate the spatial and geologic changes that occur over time. Water erodes, cleanses, and redistributes earth, and supports plant life.

The tondos and tondinos (round canvases) suggest an historical link to the Renaissance; their curved forms offer a metaphor for the ways in which water actually carves through space, re-shaping the land. The tondo also creates a kind of centrifugal force that echoes the experience of awe.

Being in or near river water is similar to the act of painting. Just as water can destabilize and submerge, the process of painting causes the painter to move back and forth from uncertainty to conviction, until hopefully, the work arrives at a dynamic, often unpredictable resolution.

On Drawing and Botanical Painting  Matisse called drawing an act of perpetual comparison. Yet drawing involves more than just an attempt at verisimilitude. My drawings and botanical paintings are an essential aspect of my practice as a painter. They provide a point of departure, allowing me to internalize the underlying structures of the natural world so that the more abstract works have authenticity. I work directly from the model and from plant specimens found in various gardens such as Wave Hill and the New York Botanical Garden.