• My imagination is best nurtured through the act of drawing. My thought processes are substantially different when I write or speak than when I draw. With words I must begin with a very clear idea of what I’m expressing, while drawing requires me to have only a sliver of an idea, a clean surface, and something to make marks. I can then engage in a semi-automatic process of building three-dimensional form and finding space through shape and line. As long as my mind doesn’t interfere too much, that process will result in spatially and conceptually complex images that often tell me much about myself and my place in the world.

• For me, art is at its best when it makes connections between seemingly incongruent objects and/or ideas. Relationships are the real subject of art, but when those relationships are too familiar or clichéd, the artwork will fail to incite interest in the viewer or inspire anyone. I’m not looking for symbols to reinforce what I already know or believe but rather analogs of unfamiliar experiences. When I’m working, I find it most helpful to use materials and methods that are not easily mastered. The more complexity I involve in my studio practice, the more unpredictable are my choices.

• I am excited about the wide array of methods that digital technology has brought to the visual arts; not for how they have made image-making easier (which they have) but for the greater breadth of life they bring to my ideas and images. The ability to take a drawing, digitize it, and use it over again in different formats and media allows me to work quickly though the cascade of ideas started by that one image.