My work is about eliciting a personal connection between the viewer and the art piece. I have a personal connection to each work and strive to enable each person viewing my work the freedom to find their own connection with the piece. Creative inspirations come from the world around me. It may be anything, from people and places I encounter, sounds I hear or emotions I’m feeling. The common core in all my work is it comes from an emotional response within me and a desire to share that experience with other people. My goal is not necessarily to dictate the viewer to have the same feeling, but to invite each individual to personally interact with the work and develop their own interpretation.

 

I seldom work with a predetermined, fully developed piece in mind. I’d rather begin with a general idea of what I’m feeling or wanting to capture and let the individual piece develop itself. I try to observe and listen to what the work is saying to me in achieving a finished piece as I work. I do put quite a lot of preliminary thought into what design elements and principles or how I want to use them. But I see these as a toolbox to use freely rather than as rules to develop my composition. I think that nearly 30 years working in civil engineering helped me develop my approach to problem solving I now use in art. In the 70’s and early 80’s when I considered an art career and was actively studying, I’m not sure I fully understood that concept.

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Since returning to serious art study a couple years ago, every day is an opportunity to learn about myself and the world around me. I had to return to creating art, it was a larger part of me than I ever realized. Because of my interactive style of working, I mainly utilize a multitude of drawing media and focus on watercolor for painting. These media seem to best facilitate the spontaneity and reactive approach in letting each piece evolve its own being or emotion. I seldom complete a piece that imitates an image in my mind. Each piece develops its own personality and message as I’m working. If I pay attention to that message versus forcing myself into the piece, the work ends up a joint effort of me and the piece itself. I stop when it feels like I’ve best reflected what the work is saying, not necessarily if my initial concept was achieved.

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As an artist, I view myself being a conduit for the piece to communicate personally with each viewer. This loose approach process isn’t always successful but when it does all come together, I can feel the emotion within the piece and hopefully each viewer can sense that as well. That’s my overall objective. That’s when I feel I succeeded in creating a good piece of art.