My process of painting begins as a kind of soliloquy through which I work out my fascinations with the contemporary landscape and the connections that tie me to my place in the world. I discover painting sites without seeking them. Often motifs are the serendipitous results of trips to the grocery store or other practical routines of daily life.
I paint on location, executing small, quick studies in which I attempt to respond to the transience of light and weather. The challenge is to distill the essential color, form, and space from the "blooming, buzzing confusion" of nature using only my eyes and the language of painting. Balancing these outdoor studies are longer meditations worked out on a larger scale in the studio from drawings, photographs, and experimentation at the palette. The two practices complement each other but are essentially self-sufficient activities. When working outdoors I rarely think of the studies as preparations for studio paintings. If anything the reverse is true. A long season of studio work often drives me outdoors to escape the inevitable ditches I drive myself into when the direct reference to nature has grown thin.
Divesting myself of limiting preconceptions is a necessary condition of painting from observation, and so the act of painting is not so much about the resulting commodity as it is a game of consciousness. Receptiveness is my primary aim. The goal, ultimately, is to construct a living metaphor in color, shape, and mark for my experience of the concrete world. The thrill when the first crude likeness appears is still as fresh and exciting as it was when I first started painting.