My mixed media collage work is a dialogue between the accidental and the intentional; chance juxtapositions and planned elements; the unconscious and the conscious. Materials and process are the focus; the finished work is a physical record of search and discovery. Representational imagery is only implied and allowed to be personally perceived by each viewer.

Raw materials are created through experimentation with acrylic paints and gels, pencil, ink, marker, crayon, wax, thread - any non-oil-based media. Photographs are taken or found and reproduced by copier or computer, the images often being altered by these mechanical means and added to the work through various transfer processes. Original drawings are created. Original writings are done on various surfaces. Other raw materials are simply found - paper, letters, images, ribbons, wire, fabric, junk, used dryer sheets. The raw materials are brought together by a spontaneous and intuitive collage process using an acrylic gel mixture as the glue, which is applied both under and over the collage elements. This collage process alternates with painting, drawing, writing, stitching, cutting, lacing, masking methods, image transfers, etc., as many times as it takes until the work says that it is "done."

My most recent body of work, the landscape series, often involves very few processes and a minimal number of layers. When the series introduced itself there was no conscious intent to create landscape imagery - it simply appeared in the first couple of works. Once the implied landscapes became apparent to me, I began to create them by intention. Some of them barely suggest the possibility of a land or seascape, others are more obviously literal. On first sight most viewers take these works to be pure paintings. But, on closer examination, one can see that I have left tell-tale signs of the collage process, like wrinkles from the gluing process or gaps left where paper edges reveal the support. The delight of these works is in the possibility of going back and forth between appreciating their abstract nature and seeing the representational illusion that these abstract means create in the viewer's mind.