As a child growing up in Vermont I spent countless hours outdoors exploring the world that encompassed me. I have a master's degree in landscape architecture, and continue to spend many hours engaged in the exploration of my environment, so it seems natural to me that I would choose the landscape as a point of departure for my artwork.
My painting is primarily concerned with the confluence of three factors: light, memory and formal structure. Whenever possible I will visit a site many times in order to observe how light will reveal a particular landscape at a given time of day, and how, at a particular moment in time, it has the capacity to transform the ordinary to the extraordinary.Memory plays an important part in what I choose to paint, often unconsciously. Places that I visit over and over, that I find visually stimulating or interesting tend to form an image in my mind. The images that stay fixed in my memory often find their way into my paintings. My recollection of a place and the feelings it evokes influences the way that a particular scene is rendered in my work.I will choose a specific subject, for example a barn, because of its visual impact due to the way it inhabits its landscape, how it becomes a dynamic part of the larger landscape in which it sits and the resultant adjacencies.
I try to work on site, using photographs more as structural and memory aids in laying out a particular composition rather than as images to copy. I find that the more familiar I am with a place, the more I try to invest in capturing what is for me the essence or spirit. Paradoxically, familiarity does not always make it easier to render the unique quality of a place—it often proves more illusive. When I begin a piece I start with an idea of the issues that I wish to explore, but I do not know how a particular painting will ultimately evolve. It's like following an unfamiliar path through the woods, not knowing where the journey will lead.