Statement

I am an abstract painter who was born and educated in Pittsburgh, PA.  Studying and making art since childhood, I majored in painting and sculpture at Carnegie-Mellon University, and have been a working artist, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, for most of my life.

Heavily influenced by the Abstract Expressionist movement, my concerns have always been less about content and more about formal composition.  I see color, shape, line, form, space and texture—and the feelings they evoke when arranged in a way that “works”-- as my subjects.  I paint with joy and clarity, grief, sadness, intensity, uncertainty, self-doubt, and persistence. 

Since the mid-nineties, I have had the great fortune to be able to work in a studio in my backyard built in 1923 (by hand) by the California artist, William Gaw (1891-1973). I feel his presence and his blessing as I work, heeding the words of Jasper Johns:

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"Take a canvas.  Put a mark on it.  Put another mark on it."