Ah, the art statement ... statements about art ... here are a few of my favorites:

"I am frequently asked to provide a statement for exhibitions of my drawings and paintings. I wonder if writers ever have to make drawings to help explain what they have written." -Craig Marshall Smith-   "...talking about a drawing is somewhat like dancing your doctoral thesis..." -unsure of source-   "I intentionally contradict myself to avoid conforming to my own ideas." -Marcel Duchamp-

I once postulated that eloquence or reduction may be the natural trajectory in an artist's development, and if this is true it's obvious that I have a long career ahead of me! I like that idea, and also the idea that I function like a prism; attempting to efficiently or faithfully "take in" the essence of a thing and then, as does a prism, "project" in colors, an expression of it that reflects its unique essence ... and here's where it gets complicated ... with what degree of effect or affect, as it were, from me? And what does that interplay between me and these unique essences do to my trajectory? That can only be determined on the canvas, no matter what words I choose to put forth. I take the third of the above statements VERY seriously, and the sources for my imagery are accordingly variable. An image may develop based on a philosophical concept or a visual concept I have in mind, or as a result of ideas based on study of history or culture-as was the case for the Maya Series. Or, as in the case of the Constellation Series, I was commissioned to create a painting based on my client's wishes, which included visual as well as musical resources, and the task was to create something that represented the musical concept and sound in visual form. I enjoy variation ... and contradiction. I like to ponder the greatest possible opposition of two things (visual elements, concepts, events, religions, cultures) and where those two things possibly intersect, how they relate, or where a part of the one points up something in the other. Along those lines, I also enjoy the variation that occurs from the inception of a piece to its completion: I like the changes that occur between the sketch book and the canvas, between the black and white image and the color image, between the original piece and its reproduction in the myriad formats that technology now offers. I like to paint in between impasto application of paint and wet, drippy glazes. I like to super-impose images and play with depth verses flat or even convex effects achieved in unconventional ways; like using red to create depth or using one line to flatten where another creates depth. I like truth, and believe that it is the one, most important subjective element in a piece of art, no matter the media. "The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall." -Vince Lombardi- "One is not to be defined by whether or not he falls, but by how he gets up after a fall" -Housekeeping Manager, Maid in Manhatten-