In daily life we prioritize. We manage time, save time, avoid wasting time. We buy health insurance, fire insurance, car insurance, travel insurance, liability insurance, flood insurance. Then, a disaster like COVID-19 sweeps us out of our routine, and we are reminded of our precarious position in a broader ecosystem. This vulnerability interests me, with the comingling of abstraction and representation as the metaphor for uncertainty.
I love painting for all the reasons that distinguish it from film, photography, and digital imaging: the handmade quality that condenses the consciousness of the time required to execute the work. Mark making and developing color relationships require space in time, and space to think; art becomes both meditative and responsive. The image then merges with the actual time of the viewer. This may last only a second, or many minutes, particularly if one lives with an artwork. I strive to make art which draws the viewer to look again, and again. I want the experience of looking to expand into the viewer’s thinking, stretching the contemplative experience.
I agree with Jorge Luis Borges’ comments that ‘You (the poet, or ‘every artist’) are constantly receiving something from the outer world. It all has to be transformed…[this is] the happy duty, or transforming everything into symbols. Those symbols can be colors, shapes, sounds.’ (from 1976 television interview)
In the past I have painted on shaped canvases, jostled abstraction with cartoon-like figures, built painted sculptures and sometimes installations. My favorite artist is (usually) Elizabeth Murray. My career has been multi-faceted, from corporate murals to islamic design. The more time I spend in my current day job (picture framing), the more I am pulled to my personal abstraction, where I feel most free and alive. I thrive on the uncertainty of the outcome and the sense of experimentation.
Tell us why you love to create art.
Art is how I process, respond to, and make meaning of this whole roller coaster, ever-changing adventure we call ‘life.’
What is your favorite type of art to create?
I have two favorite types: art that makes people smile, and art that makes people want to look again, and again, …and again.
Some recurring themes are materialism, hypocrisy of war, meaningful (or meaningless!) terms and phrases, threats to the environment, and love.
Where do you find inspiration?
I can find inspiration in a beautiful image that I want to capture before it’s gone.
Other times, I just turn on the tap to my surreal subconscious: there is always some thing - or some ‘one’- waiting to get out.
Meanwhile, in abstract works, all I need are edges. Edges have inspired me ever since my Professor explained how Cezanne would use heavy strokes in an open sky. Suddenly, the vast distance advances forward and meets the edge of the mountain.