The qualities of materials and processes are an important of what inspires me. I have spent much of my life in pursuit of revelation and images by manipulating materials applied to surfaces and objects. There have been moments of great satisfaction simply working with and following where the material and process takes me. The qualities of materials and processes are an important of what inspires me. I have spent much of my life in pursuit of revelation by manipulating materials applied to surfaces and objects. There have been moments of great satisfaction simply working with and following where the material and process takes me.

Drawing is important to me as process. I have done more drawing in the past, more than I do now, but my emphasis has changed from exploration/exercise to being a stage of planning for my paintings and constructions. I miss the sheer spontaneity (encouraged by a few glasses of wine) of my hours spent drawing and slapping bits of paint on paper with the TV on, my attention slightly divided.

“Aha” moments outside of the studio happen occasionally when an object “speaks” to me from its perch, as it happens, anywhere. It can be a small box in a craft store or a piece of doll house furniture, or a spindle from a wire insulator at a yard sale or the target ball for Bacci I found in a junk shop in Provence, that displays a drunken smile.

Outlier (as it is preferred to be called now), or Outsider Art whispers its strange, ineffable messages in an “unmediated” voice from the recesses of a consciousness often filtered through the perceptions of a tiny, contorted experience of life. Outlier artists find inspiration God knows where, but I’ll say one thing: it’s not art school.

When I’ve felt stumped or blocked I’ve taken up new media, particularly when I was younger. I started making paintings when I was a teen, continuing into my twenties. I dead-ended at my immaturity and lack of knowledge with the medium. For personal and simple survival (teaching, day job) reasons I fell in love with photography and its apparatus. The photograph gave me a ready made image requiring less thought and planning than drawing and painting. It was right for me at the time, too, because I started to work with color photography. It wasn’t a “thing” then in the perception of the photo as fine art. However, it did fit with what I did as a painter, perceiving myself a good colorist. I still occasionally jump sideways to another medium – like intalglio a few years ago, when I bought a press. I’m preparing to return to it, soon.