"The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes
but in having new eyes” -M. Proust

The inspiration for my most recent landscape paintings comes from locations I have observed during walks in the woods and along the rivers of midcoast Maine.  I recently moved to Newcastle, and the views along the Damariscotta River capture my heart and imagination.  I frequently see paintings as I walk to Dodge Point and other lands owned by the Damariscotta river Association, two conservation areas close to my home.

My ideas begin in the natural world, but once a work is underway, the paint itself on the flat surface takes on a life of its own.  Rather than seeking to reproduce a scene, I am attempting to open my senses to an environment.  I'm as interested in what's in here as what's out there, and space, color and surface tension evolve as I work, the shapes dictating the direction in which the painting moves.  For example, vertical trees purposefully span the paintings from top to bottom close to the picture plane, creating a grid pattern with horizontal planes of grass, water and/or sky behind.  Still, the interest in surface pattern is juxtaposed by a feeling of depth, and the large scale format of some of the landscape paintings help to create a space into which the viewer can enter.

The still life paintings are inspired by my home surroundings.  As in the landscapes, two-dimensional aspects interest me as much as the subject.  I favor the topdown view in setting up most of my still lifes because it flattens the depth of the paintings and allows for an interesting arrangement of items spread out across the picture plane.  Space extends in every direction, and the eye moves from object to object, as opposed to the more traditional, western two-point perspective where the eye is drawn to a vanishing point somewhere inside the scene.