I begin with an intense feeling or realization, and then sketch a harmony or tension of elements that convey that feeling. It is not important to me to paint things the way that they look, because I paint the way that they feel. Birds, dresses and trees are stand-ins for people, while weather conveys the storms hiding within us. My paintings attempt to create a marriage between the existing landscape and the imaginative reality. 

I am interested in the connection to others through my captured awareness of universal truths. I wonder about the stamina of human relationships. I seek to represent their range of strength and frailty. I wonder about the stamina of the environment and draw parallels between our outward natural world and the internal human world. 

I feel that I have written my own visual language – which I now speak through symbols and technique. Viewers of my work are so drawn to it because it is a language we already understand – like an ancient mythology written on the inside of our bones. When I work I enter a dance with the collective memory.