This moniker is aspirational.   I am always interested in drawing out something from within.  And I want to own it before I feel sure, in case I never feel sure.  And perhaps that is the sensibility that characterizes me, and my work – not only when it is called art but also when it is called cooking, or caregiving, or conversation, or teamwork, or writing.   No  matter how  many times I have done it, I feel as though I have never done it before.  Is that an idea that characterizes all ART?  Isn’t a purpose of art to see with fresh eyes?  And to evoke a response?   And doesn’t art often evoke more than was ever intended, things that the artist never saw?  The other is the viewer, and a connection is stimulated by art.

Thank you for visiting my web site, and for opening this blog.  The paintings in this first series of a new era, Puzzles, are here to engage.   First of all, the paintings evoked a response from me, before they existed, to make me paint them.   These are the only paintings in my life that took more than 15 years to make!  The evolution of the images, the words, and the materials just kept asking something more of me, and I kept responding.  As I changed, the paintings changed.

It is not always easy to be sure what you are seeing in these works.  Perhaps that is asking too much of the viewer.  But that is an experience that I enjoy, whether upon first waking up and opening my eyes, or seeing in the dark, or experimenting with different ways of gazing, or when I become lost in drawing.   It is a practice, to see with innocent eyes, not too certain. 

Doubt is a precept for Modern Art, when personal iconography, symbolism and the subconscious began to be legitimate subject matter.  Aren’t these an aspect of all subject matter?  The unintended part?  Room for doubt implies space for something other.  That is why, for me, these works feel like an antidote to monumental heroic art, that denies the other.   But even in that kind of art, the ghosts of what is left out is always present.  Now the world is crying out to make it seen.

Uncertainty, unintended, doubt are elements of CURIOSITY, a driving force in discovery, play and moving towards AHA.   I aspire to make paintings that can do that.  I am curious about your experience!  What evokes AHA?  I am looking forward to hearing about what occurs for you?   I hope this blog starts a conversation.       

 The painting pictured, Flower Flight, is from a previous series, done long ago, that I may post on this sight later.