Some favorite quotes...

Between the intitial idea and the finished piece lies a gulf we can see across, but never fully chart.  Bayles & Orland

...the soul never thinks without an image.  Aristotle

When we look at a particular work of northwest coast art and see the shape of it, we are only looking at its after-ife.  Its real life is the movement by which it got to be that shape.  Bill Reid, Haida carver

Truth is the freedom of letting things reveal themselves as they are--but, when anything is revealed, other things are concealed.  The best place to get a good glimpse of the truth is not in what we know but on the edge of what we know.  John Briggs quoting Martin Heidegger

Sometimes I see it and then paint it.  Other times I paint it and then see it.  Jasper Johns

Art does not reproduce what we see.  It makes us see.  Paul Klee

I know that in my own work the best things are the things that just happened--images that were suddenly caught and that I hadn't anticipated ... I believe in a deeply ordered chaos and in the rules of chance.  Francis Bacon

Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.  Edgar Degas

When I can't work, or when I have a problem I immediately start to draw.  In order to disengage myself, to try to find a solution....  They are drawings that I do for myself: I don't do them for others... My drawings are purely functional.  Jean Tinguely

To see far is one thing; going there is another.  Constantin Brancusi

When your horse dies, get off.  Bayles and Orland

It may be a point of great pride to have a Van Gogh on the living room wall, but the prospect of having Van Gogh himself in the living room would put a great many devoted art lovers to rout.  Ben Shahn

I am Inspired by...

Books & Writers:
Okakura Kakuzo: The Book of Tea
James Elkins: What Painting Is
John Briggs: Fire in theCrucible, The Alchemy of Creative Genius
Shaun McNeff: Trust the Process, An Artist's Guide to Letting Go
Cennino Cennini: The Craftsman's Handbook
Natalie Goldberg: Writing Down the Bones, Freeing the Writer Within
Wendell Berry
Wassily Kandinsky: Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Simon Schama: Rembrandt's Eyes
Chaim Potok: My Name is Asher Lev
Pearl Buck: The Good Earth
Marcus Aurelius: Meditations

Also inspired by:
road trips
weather
the changing of the seasons
indigenous artwork
nearly-true stories
the Beatitudes
color and texture
parables
secrets

I am Influenced by:
Medieval Icons
Illuminated Manuscripts
Camille Pisarro
Vincent Van Gogh
Hokusai
Hiroshige
Bill Reid
Juane Quick-To-See Smith
Louise Nevelson
Robert Rauschenberg
Cave Paintings
Fred Matchetanz
the list goes on & on...

I am Searching for:
a gypsy wagon to take me anywhere I'd want to go--check this off--I got it!
more unscattered time
an impression in each National Park

In the works:
Continuing the National Park Series along with a bit of traveling
Adding to the Everyday Saints series
Adding to the Story Painting series
*** most importantly--finishing and adding images to Mom's book ***