The series "Field Guides," is my ongoing effort as an artist to collect and preserve my visual sensibilities. With each piece being the forum for continued exploration as countless layers of collage, medium and acrylic paint coalesce to become a finished painting.

The one thing I can count on as I participate in the creation of a piece is that in defiance of my intent and regardless of how hopeful my expectations, each attempt will undergo many revisions. With the end result ideally being the cumulative effect of the whole and not just working toward the outermost layer. As with memory, once obscure things, hidden elements from the pieces past will form an essential role on the surface; often as relief, while the most hard fought details will likely earn a swift opaque top coat as a result of each days fits and starts. Like an urban palimpsest many of the most thoughtful moments occur as these conflicting efforts achieve harmony and then begin to recede resulting in the melding of competing ideas.

A parallel group of paintings consists of birds perched on a branch that extends across a multi-paneled environment. A typical setting will include any number of characters engaged in a dialog with a corresponding mate. Sometimes the exchange is reciprocal and in others it's met with dissent. Thoughts and ideas are represented by clusters of ballpoint ink circles emanating from within the under painting or at pronounced points just beyond the birds sphere of influence. Vertical colored fields extend through each bird and into the branch and often reemerge further down the line and into another bird. My hope is to convey the intimacy shared between the activity and its effect on the environment it occupies.

The end results will ideally continue to serve up a variety of visual reminders or clues telling of how important certain influences have been and over time where they led. Hopefully over many years this process will allow me to imagine the body of work as a stop action time line slowly revealing the newly favored elements only to see them diminish and evolve again as my changing guides and exposure leave its mark on my art making.