ARTIST STATEMENT

The beauty of art is beauty born of the spirit and born again.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Critic Arthur C. Danto explains this quote:

I think it must merely have to do with the fact that beauty in the first instance is internal to the concept of the work in the artist's mind, and then enacted in the work itself, so born twice-first in the idea and then in the embodiment of the idea.

We all look at things differently. What I see is dictated by where I live and where I travel, dreams I have, who I talk to, music I hear, books I read. My work is shaped by daily life and the love of art that feeds and nourishes the work I produce. Considering these influences from this complicated world we live in, how can I make sense of it, how can I center on an idea? The answer always seems to be the same. Go home to myself.

I think it possible to make work that is as much about time, memory, wind, weather, smell, happiness, anger as it is about the way a place looks. I experience painting like a dancer experiences a dance. I feel it emotionally in my soul and physically in the muscles of my body. Rhythm and a sense of touch are a part of my work; the pattems in the markings mimic the physical processes in nature. I construct layers in this process, like the strata of the land that inspires me. I take common experiences and make them visible so that they may be shared and communicated. This is what artists do.