I graduated in 1977 with the intention of painting. Then I pulled my first print, and that was what tipped the scales. I love the chemistry, the unpredictability, (even after years of experience), the enormity of
possibility.
Traditional printmaking can sometimes feel like sorcery with its various recipes for specific mark making. There is also no ambivalence in this medium. If you are etching a plate in acid or gouging an image out of wood, chances are, you are not ambivalent about the process or the marks you want to make. Erasures and modifications arent achieved easily.
Most of my work veers from tradition, in the sense that usually it is not editioned. I favor monoprints, over multiples. Each piece contains a variety of traditional methods and techniques though, usually printed on Japanese Washi*or Korean Hanji* that is subsequently glued to a board, canvas or heavier printmaking paper. The thinness and strength of these papers enhances the creative potential enormously, since portions of any plate can be printed and glued onto any other image leaving no discernible line. This is very useful for me, because I think of images and areas of print from my older work as familiar cast members, in a troupe that rearranges itself on a variety of stages.
My subject matter is personal yet universal, traditional yet innovative. Based mainly on the figure, the focus is on human interaction. The images fall into two categories: those that suggest conflict and opposition. The others imagine a consciousness of peace that
would heal the fissures of over exposure to the polarities in human existence. My work offers no solutions, since those are specific to the individual. It merely punctuates and acknowledges the performance.