Artist Statement

Art and Music are my reasons for being. They are my way to engage with and try to understand the world
around me and myself as well as create a world and a self that are intellectually/aesthetically/socially/
emotionally thrilling and humorous, and that explore, experiment, evolve, and deepen. In Visual Art I work
with different media and Art forms including charcoal, acrylic, oil, pencil, watercolor, photography,
plywood, paper, cardboard, and others.

In Music, I sing and play piano/keyboards, and do originals as well as traditional and old
blues/spirituals/jazz/Appalachian.

I make Art no matter what else is going on or what else I am doing. It is an extension of myself, and my
way to be in the world and with others. It is a way to communicate. It is a way to explore the in-between
worlds.

I used to be an oil snob, but had the sudden urge to blast my eyeballs and brain with fluorescent and
other blazing colors, which I started by polyurethaning some of my oil pieces and painting over them with
acrylics. Acrylic has now sort of taken over as my primary medium, along with charcoal. Charcoal is such
an extension of my eye/brain, that it feels a part of me. Charcoal can be sculpted and molded; it is like dry
paint, or two-dimensional clay, as well as also being the best pencil.

The Face Is The Place: Portraiture is my favorite Art tool, a subject-vehicle to use as a way of
creating/exploring/the human condition/relationships. I try to see inside of people, including myself, not
intrusively, but as opposed to cosmetically. I also do a lot of self-portraits. I am studying what is going on
with someone, not moods or isolated expressions, but people being unexplainably themselves. So much
happens in a face, and I take many visual notes over the time it takes to draw/paint someone, which can
continue later from memory/imagination. The marks are everything I am seeing, thinking, imagining and
sensing, not just rendering of a person's features. I am endlessly fascinated/inspired by/ amazed by how
different the same face can look from moment to moment, and yet always look like the same person.