All of my paintings are heavily process based. There are three distinct categories I oscillate between creating. Plein Air Weather, Layered Landscapes, and Odinks. One of the common threads that tie these three together is that method prohibits replication. In each of these groupings, I include structures whose quiddity is chance itself.
Plein Air Weather is a collaboration with the paint, substrate, and weather. The first one I ever created was by accident -I got caught in a storm on the north shore of Lake Superior and thought the painting was destroyed when I couldn’t cover it or get to shelter before the downpour hit. Days later, when I finally looked at the piece, I was stunned by its atmospheric and ethereal quality. The first lines and structures I applied were mostly represented. The parts that were fresh right before the rain fell had shifted, moved, and fundamentally changed without my permission or intention. The whole piece felt as if it came from some foreign place I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I knew no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t be able to replicate that day, the storm, or the painting. So now, I try to capture that quality in other paintings. The weather, places, colors, and moods are always unique. Even though each painting is so different, they hold exactly what that day was like for me in that wild moment.
Layered Landscapes are always acrylic on wood. These pieces take months to create because they are layered and sanded down, layered, sanded, layered, sanded, sometimes up to 6 or 8 times. This application and removal permit me to work slowly and allows room for a story to settle. The story is always about place and the finished piece is the setting. The painting becomes where I imagine the characters from my writing residing.
Odinks are odes in ink. These paintings are always on paper and I often think of them as poetic maps . Sometimes they’re landscapes. Sometimes they’re abstractions. They often contain found objects. Sometimes I fill the space with words and other times it becomes a diptych where the title is the poem.