The will to form impels me — to the studio works-in-progress, the blank canvases and the scattered paints. It's the commitment to find my distinct voice as to what I paint and how I paint, trusting in an evolving, non-linear process that eventually yields the finished work.  

 

Color is my artistic oxygen. The color in every painting is painstakingly chosen, refined and influenced by what I observe, study, or recall that left an indelible impression.  

 

Color is more to me than the main "actor" or structural scaffolding: It is a visual representation of time, affected by memory, context, circumstance. Artists I revere whose mastery of color in service of their work exude an enduring life force include Georges Braque, Pierre Bonnard, Chuta Kimura, Agnes Martin, Juan Miró, Vincent Van Gogh.  

 

Will to form describes my process; I rarely work from much of a preconceived idea or put marks on a canvas except as a catalyst. Too often they led down a blind alley or proved to be more of a distraction than a touchstone. I wrestle with an idea, discard it, regroup. As the painting becomes more committed, I search for the "right" resolution to every hurdle that arises until, for me, the finished work feels inevitable.  

 

My open-ended process of investigating personal concerns compels reflection, re-examination, editing and persistent questioning at every stage. Some work doesn't feel complete without the use of unexpected materials – string, tar, sand, paper. Other work wouldn't abide 'supporting players' but the painting demands some element of surprise. It's inexplicably personal and subjective.  

 

This body of work inquires into abstraction — winnowing the essential; where figurative, it delves into the personality of the form depicted. "Over the past decade, the time I spent studying with Martin Lubner at the Lubner Studio was extraordinary: It was there that my will to form engaged."