Artist Statement
I try to work with what I know. From my earliest memory I saw from my hands and eyes. I grew up with the art of the Ancient World around me. I love shallow relief, edges, lines. Studying Intaglio Printmaking with Mauricio Lasansky seemed to also follow my love of shallow relief. I took to the burin (engraving) thanks to Virginia Myers and Mr. Lasansky, at a time when few other students did. My art is very physical and I like the sculptural possibilities in drawing and intaglio.
My images were very objective until the late 1990’s when I began to obscure them. At this transitional time in my work I felt a release, a new look. There may have been hints of this in some earlier work, but unrealized, or subordinate. The figure always dominated. Now, after a block of time I see that it is the figure that has become subordinated to a big degree, other faces have taken over, more abstract.
There are several themes I have been working with since graduate school. Aging and Illness, and my wife and girls are the main ones. I use my family and friends for models and have used these separate/connected subjects to create an emotional balance. I have used the portrait and self-portrait since the beginning.
One new subject is music, especially Jazz. I began to play the trumpet again in the late 1990’s. Images came slowly at first but now have numbered over 40 plates and have blurred the line with my illness-related self-portraits. The discipline of the engraver and trumpet feed each other and are equally hard.
Having a progressive disorder has freed me from any obligations to past forms. With this liberation I can find a new image to explain myself.