Access to beautiful physical surroundings has always been a crucial factor in my decisions as to where to live.  I first found Boulder, where I took five semesters of geology because of my obsession with the mountains.  A year in Aspen followed, and now my homes are Santa Barbara and Mammoth Lakes, California.  Travels have often been to countries which offer spectacular hiking.  These places inspired me by their immenseness, and fed my love for the outdoors and open space.

Although largely self-taught, I attend a weekly abstract painting workshop with Rick Stich in Santa Barbara, and have attended several other workshops.  Probably the artistic movement which has influenced me the most is abstract expressionism.  It has also been called action painting, and I love the depictions of pure energy.  Tonalist paintings have always appealed to me; realism has not.  I'm most interested in the play between color, texture and form, and I paint with both ends of the brush, a palette knife, combs and my fingers!  Abstract images emerge gradually through the application of many layers on the canvas, and I am never sure what each painting will be, until somehow I know it is finished.

My hope is to convey my passion for our multi-layered environment, and for movement and color, and in some cases to use depictions of empty space to highlight what we are losing as the world grows more crowded.  If the viewer feels an emotional response to my work, then I've succeeded.