For me the original impetus for making a picture is the suggestion of the erotic I find in
natural forms. It is the power of the surf that first attracts me, the compelling repetition. It
is relentless, constantly demanding that something be given up to it. Its rhythm is just off.
I find myself drawn to it, into it. It caresses the rocks, comes slamming in, pulls back, and
slithers out. The power seems its greatest as the surf makes its final withdrawal, that
moment just before the next inrush. It is this power in reverse, in retreat, much as I imagine
the power of a black hole, that compels me to make the picture: my guard against
disappearing into the unknown, my gesture in response to the overwhelming that exists in
myself and in nature.
The pictures are quiet in a world where screams are many times not heard. They attempt
beauty in a time of garish conspicuousness. They are drawn from inside and move to the
outside and a larger pattern of meaning.
The sequence in which any group of these photographs is arranged is as important as the
individual image. In addition the relationship of the parts in any given image changes as it
is seen in the context of the whole work. The spatial relationships, the scale and
perspective, within each picture and between pictures become a key to the larger mystery.
This process is extended by using two or three images to read as one or by using a grid of
nine. This play of line and shape, color and tone, space and scale from one image to the
next establishes the narrative.
The images are sometimes suggestively sensual, sometimes distinctly minimal. They
reflect in varying degrees the Bauhaus basis of my art training, my austere Presbyterian
heritage and my instinctive sensual response.