and so it goes...

Since I began making art, my earliest recollections are me setting an a gravel bar on the creek below our home in Brown County drawing on pieces of sandstone with softer rocks of various colors, my passion has been to try and express my deeply felt reverence and impressions of nature. It has been and continues to be what drives my work.
In much contemporary art, but not all, I see a trend away from nature and this philosophical ideal. To my mind this movement to deny the inspiration of nature has led to much contemporary art being more about design and decoration, than true painting. But, having said that there are of course many artist still pursuing that path, Jamie Wyeth comes to mind.
As my style has developed through much experimentation I now try to present work that conveys my feelings for nature, my only limitations being the technical obstacles of my skills as a painter, and distractions that take me out of the studio. It seems there are always interruptions and chores to be done, and my dissatisfaction with technical difficulties that creep into the work that must be worked out and reigned in through the process of doing the work; one brushstroke leads to the next and one painting leads to the next. Edward Hopper said: " The struggle to prevent this decay is, I think, the common lot of all painters to whom the invention of arbitrary forms has a lesser interest."
All great painters, I believe, have found a way to compel the complicated and arduous methods and materials of painting into a reflection of their emotions. Personally I am bored with any departure from this higher goal.