When I was just a toe-headed lad, lacking in anything resembling self-confidence, my city boy father taught me to sketch the mountains, pines, and alpine streams that lived so vividly in his imagination. With the planting of that seed I began to draw obsessively, and I stood a bit taller with the attention it brought me. As a self-taught painter I lean heavily on intuition. But I've had some musical training, and that allows me to frame other creative challenges in a familiar context. When that works... when a painting's composition, dynamics, rhythm, color, tone, texture, and balance fall into place... then maybe I'm on to something. It’s a struggle, of course. As Randy Newman said of songwriting, “On a good day there’s still blood on the floor.” ​My work is mixed media: oil, acrylic, graphite, cold wax... on canvas or wood panel... applied with brushes, scrapers, trowels, rags, sponges, squeegees, or fingertips. And almost nothing I attempt is preconceived.As I add or alter marks and layers of paint I begin to search for an intriguing image, an overarching composition... a path forward. In trying to balance my native granular inclinations with the bolder and broader gestures that don't come as readily I'm looking to (ultimately) evoke an emotion. And, as with my music, I'm happiest when I've left enough ambiguity for viewers to bring something of their own to the exchange. ​​A painter named Pablo once said, “Paintings are never finished, only abandoned." I'm heading down to the studio right now. With any luck I’ll abandon something today.