Statement

Growing up in a particular family, living where I did, doing what I did and being influenced by those people and things around me, shaped me and ultimately my art. There seems to be an autobiographical thread running through my artwork, an elment connecting the fragments of my life. Experience links them into a contextual field upon which I build my images to represent my life. The role I have enacted as son, farmer, husband, father, student, and carpenter have provided me with a wealth of experiences that have nourished my image making.

It has been my intent to trap the wells of emotion and experience that are my life, harnessing and transmitting that energy to my audience. These experiences and these ideas have been the content of my artwork. The building of images, and layering of marks and metaphors provides the viewer with opportunities to know me at different levels, both public and private.

My messages are layered with meaning. The strata of marks and metaphors are not unlike those layers examined by geologist or archaeologist. Each layer provides clues to an earlier time in my life, a different cultural context, a compilation of personal experience to be analyzed. Some layers are distinct and clear, memories that stand out in my mind. Other are obscured by time. Before you lies a palimpsest that is best known to me, open to your discernment as you attempt to find meaning in the stata of my marks.

The process of visual dialogue is made possible through the artwork, linking the artist with the audience, whereby the audience becomes aware of the artist's unique accessment of the world. The artwork provides a potential communion of mind and spirit between individuals who may never otherwise meet. Shared experiences, symbols and educational background may provide clearer understanding of my work. At some point we may touch and you will know me through the marks and metaphors, the record of my activities as draftsman, painter and printmaker.