For me, starting a painting is a leap into the unknown requiring the presence to follow leads when they appear but to know when to let go of dead ends. The materials can change- paper to board, pencil to acrylic pint or ink but the approach stays the same. Seeking, sometimes finding, the autonomous activity provides plenty of opportunities to fail but also the freedom to find something new, and the time to get lost and meander coaxing the painting to emerge. Searching for compositions that harmonize, colors that sing, shapes that vibrate and push against one another creating emotion. Intellectually it’s like trying to learn a language without knowing the alphabet. I’m influenced by the shapes in the natural world, by other paintings, by musical rhythms but ultimately abstract painting is creating something that does not exist another way. The process of painting takes time and the problems can’t be solved any quicker than the process will allow with the ultimate dilemma being always how to know when it’s finished.