"Keeping it Shiny Side Up" 

2009

Motorcycles have fascinated me since a young teenager.  Motorcycles for me represent freedom, movement, and friendships.  They have given me great memories of summer: moving through the days with the wind in my face. Now, slightly older, I ride to keep grounded. On a motorcycle, it�s you on two wheels with out a buffer or a cage around you. This keeps me in the moment. 

These drawings are created from a collection of my photos, toys and some great memories of my first bikes.  They are created in the same spirit of riding: light, loose and easy going- a gesture.  They are simply constructed on paper, motorcycles and life are not stationary nor static. In these drawings, my bikes shake and rattle, the kick- stands are up and it�s up to you to catch the bikes before they fall over. Bright colors are used in my works foreground and background, screaming for your attention, like loud mufflers and bright colors do when a motorcycle drives past you.  You can�t help but look. 

"Keeping it Shiny Side Up" is a great biker phrase, it is the sweetest phrase to bestow in the spirit of well wishing,  We all want a good day, a good travel and to keep our rides and us from harm. 

"Of Land and Sea" 

2008

One of my favorite memories as a child was growing up with six dogs. They became my intimate friends. Cats and dogs have been the subject of my art most of my life. My interest in drawing animals is not to portray them, but to capture their expressive body language. I am especially interested in unzipping their fluffy coats to reveal their wildness underneath.

In my images, I pay particular attention to gesture and composition. My goal is to keep the composition lively and spirited. However, it takes many rough drafts as well as anatomical knowledge to maintain cats looking like cats and dogs looking like dogs while keeping their images spontaneous and playful. In addition, I pay attention to the balance of positive and negative shapes in my compositions. My animals are created with bold, gestural strokes and flat layers of colors, almost abstracting them. I utilize gesture to create the essence and personality of the animals in my drawings.

My solo exhibition, Of Land and Sea gave me a chance to expand my images beyond cats and dogs to a wider array of animals, whether found in the wild, in the backyard, in a tank or on a plate.

Printmaking encourages me to structure my ideas by creating an environment for my animals to play.
Sometimes the agonizing process of readjusting an image on copper gives life to an etching. Often, surprising textures are created which can produce movement or depth. Lately, working with multi-plate etchings, the challenge of color separating my images has been a successful way to maintain the abstract quality in my compositions. Recent explorations into monotypes have appealed to my painterly side. Choosing between these different approaches keeps my work spirited and my animals happy.

Monotype printmaking allows me to be intriguingly expressive. I am able to work quickly, painterly and abstractly, while the fluidity of the medium gives an active look to my animal imagery. My work begins with a gestural drawing based on an individual animal subject. I then develop the monotype by working subtractively, covering the plate with a layer of ink and then removing it in selected areas. I typically use three colors to create an image, printed in three separate passes on the press. Positive and negative spaces are created in the first two passes, while the third uses shadow to ground the animal in the composition. In a final pass, the complete animal emerges as I work additively to apply the "key", a thick black outline of the image.

The whole process of printmaking, which fuses with my drawings helps me reveal the gesture, spirit and joy from the animal world.