Artist's Statement

Influences

My inspirations and creative heroes come from many sources. Artists Wolf Kahn and Henri Matisse nurture my colorist heart. The perfect botanicals of photographers Edward Weston, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Ansel Adams simply take my breath away. As an artist working in new media, I'm especially grateful to my fearless predecessors -- from the Fauves and Dada-ists to the moderns, and prominent present-day artist David Hockney -- who have made it clear that it isn't the tools or materials that determine what is art, but the artist manifesting from the essential self.

About My Work

Photography has been at the core of my art since my early teens. As an artist, I have long been a colorist, and have worked in traditional media as well as in digital art and photography.

Everywhere I go, I see small, beautiful compositions and juxtapositions -- the soft translucence of a flower touched by a ray of sunlight, the visible life force in new growth, a little group of seed pods, or nature's glistening colors after a rain. I see how visually nurturing these impressions are for me and wish to share them so that others can be nurtured also.

I photograph digitally, which gives me the flexibility and latitude to capture what I see as closely as possible. Then I work on each image for many hours to transcend photographic literalness and embody the magic, light, and life I experienced in that original impression.

My images are printed with archival inks on archival watercolor paper, giving them depth and richness -- and transforming that ephemeral first glimpse into a permanent, physical form.

A leaf is not just a leaf, and a flower is not just a flower. Appreciating each tiny expression of Existence connects us to the greater whole. Receiving that impression in the moment (before we mentally describe or analyze) is what nurtures us -- there is something of each of us in everything that we see.