I came to practice painting in mid-life. I had done so in college when I studied art history as a younger man, but let my budding artistic desires get sidetracked. In the mid-90's I decided to return to art school. This decision came after the loss of several friends to AIDS. I developed a visceral awareness of my own mortality and came to believe if I had anything I felt I ought to do in this life worthwhile, I ought to get down to business and do it. I started painting. But I cannot say I picked up a brush and never looked back, not at all. It was more by fits and starts, and I found my art history background both a friend and an enemy. My truest friends have been my intuition and my inclination to the spiritual. Having been ex-communicated from the Pentecostal church I belonged to long ago for coming out of the closet, my spirituality has taken a more personal form that has evolved over time, and I have no formal brand name to give it. The more I paint from my intuition/spirituality and the less I listen to my old academic notions of "great art," the better my work becomes.

I don't, however, try to disregard art history entirely. My greatest heroes in painting, if I have to narrow it down, would be Clyfford Still, Jackson Pollock, and Jay DeFeo. My experience of DeFeo's masterpiece, The Rose, was so moving that it has become the single most influential painting on my work. This unusual painting gave me permission to experiment with my work in ways that I had not felt I had prior to viewing it. Asian calligraphy and the Graffiti that is part of my urban experience in the Bay Area also influence my work (I moved here 14 years ago from the rural Mid-west). These inspirations prove to me that abstraction is the most powerful and satisfying way to depict that which is beyond the particular, specific, material and limited. For me, appearances are always deceiving and it is what lies behind them that is true, good and beautiful. It also gives the viewer the room to project his/her own experiences into the work--I, for example, cannot read Asian calligraphy or much of the Graffiti I see, I am forced to experience them aesthetically. No doubt I lose much of what is intended by the creators, but I have my own experience that I treasure.

I am also intrigued by the mystery of trying to decode characters and symbols I do not understand or have only a partial understanding. My ignorance forces me to turn toward the aesthetic, I cannot even comprehend the tag on the BART station or the newspapers in Chinatown--but they move me. What is this?

It seems to me that our lives move too fast and are too crowded with too many demands and things and stimuli. It is difficult for me to believe that in our hectic society people have adequate time for themselves, for their minds and souls to breathe and recharge. I think of my paintings as places where people can come, if they can find the time, to relax, or meditate, or even worship. I don't think it at all heresy or grandiose to claim that my paintings are sacred places not unlike temples. I claim it with humility because painting is a spiritual practice for me. It connects me with the sublime and the transcendent. I hope that this is part of the experience for the viewer. If it is, then I have succeeded.