Artist Statement

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“A day so happy.
Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden”

from Gift, by Czeslaw Milosz

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The impetus for these pain:ngs began in the unknown, in the desire to make known what I had yet to learn about a subject I have long pursued. I was remembering gardens both real and imagined, gardens made and lost, gardens abandoned and, of course, the work entrusted to each of us, caring for the garden of the world and its souls.

In the making of these pain0ngs, in the contempla0on and the ac0vity of tending to their emergence, I discovered the genera0ve idea seemed to be of the underlying unity and interrelatedness of form and non-form, that endless thread which binds all life. In the ac0vity of making each mark and gesture the familiar flowered into something new.

New, more open forms from the death of the old adherence to form. In the physical act of pain0ng hour by hour, day by day, month by month un0l Autumn gave way to blossoms, I realized pain0ng was itself a prac0ce, a grounding, a rich soil into which I dug. I began to see it as an act of faith in which the images called themselves into being. This repe00on is itself an act of renewal in the face of inevitable losses. Outside the studio, always a new war, inside the studio I am a raker of sand. Each pain0ng a labor of love and regenera0on, bringing the seed of an idea to fullness and frui0on.

I choose to cul0vate care for the small piece of the garden with which I have been entrusted. When I paint these remembered pieces of ground, I see color, line, texture, shape and most importantly energy. I see the transforma0ve power of life and death.

These pain0ngs return to the theme of florals and remembered gardens with the hope to bring life-affirming resonances with which we can feel the beauty of our torn world, connect to and unearth the entangled roots of our shared desire to preserve the compassionate heart, our own best nature and the eternal return of spring.