My art background reaches far into the past - back to when my mother created little strip malls for my dollies out of recycled shoe boxes, construction paper, and paint; and my grandmother would sketch with pastels in her garden. My father won prizes for his paintings and photography and my uncle, who spent his free time building and flying remote control airplanes, later became a kinetic artist who creates real tornadoes and sculptures using trains, wheels, wood, electrical circuits, homemade masks and robots, mirrors, pendulums, sound, and any number of things. I guess you could say that creativity runs in the bloodline.

After going through a recently acquired packet of drawings and paintings from my childhood, I noticed that my subject matter hasn't changed much. Tornadoes seem to have been a favorite theme from the time I was six. Fairies and strange creatures, twisted tunnels of trees, leaves and flowers. And a lot of color.

I rarely have a preconceived idea of how I want a painting to turn out. I usually work directly on a canvas, without a planned diagram or a pre-sketch. I begin with layers and layers of thin, transparent acrylic paint over a textured background. Texture is created using gesso, or a variety of other gel mediums, which is poured on and spread over the substrate using any number of tools, from an old hairbrush to foam stamps.

My favorite landscapes usually feature a foreboding weather pattern and a horizon dotted with winged creatures, flowers, airplanes, silhouettes, and other oddities; or a patch of sidewalk with remnants of a hopscotch game, windblown with debris. Each detail is like adding another puzzle piece, and using things like image transfers, metal leafing, various bits of paper and fabric, beads, semi-precious stones, thread, and other found obects, I slowly complete the puzzle. I use Golden products almost exclusively, for their luminosity and archival properties.

I am sometimes criticized for being too cluttered in my work, but I suppose I am just following the direction of my subconscious. I am certainly not a minimalist, or even close. I don't tend to follow rules--we aren't here on the planet long enough to worry about sticking to rules when it comes to art. I follow the rules of my heart and soul and my work is unique - which is how it should be.

Art should stir passion. It sets passion into motion and inspires one to think, to act, to react. Art makes us take notice. It can evoke happiness, sadness, fear, or anger. It speaks to us and brings to the surface that which would otherwise lie dormant in the minds of creators. Georgia O'Keeffe once said that she found she could say things with color and shapes that she couldn't say any other way...things she had no words for. I speak in my own language--the only language I know.