“I begin my work with an image. This image might be my daughter’s face or a painting of Emily Bronte by her brother, Branwell. My eye is as likely to become obsessed with a tree outside my window as a painted bird on a Pompeiian fresco. The image ignites the artistic impulse and the image becomes the focus of my work. I draw it. I paint it. I fuss over it. I even gesso it to oblivion and start over. What is finally created are layers— an archaeological dig of sorts but in reverse. The image shaped by time, materials and me.”