Creating images is like breathing for me. At one time I painted in an abstract expressionist style using watercolor as a medium. I also did figurative and portraiture work in pencil as well as cartooning in pen.
After working in information technology for many years I found that I had drifted far from my creative side and technical accomplishments. A mentor at the time suggested that I start my path back to the creative life with photography. I was reluctant. Nevertheless, I started experimenting with digital photography. The compositions I created were often very good but I felt something was missing in my expression.
Having been fascinated with fractal geometry for some time I began to experiment with textures, patterns and shapes I found in materials such as sand, stone, and bark.. Soon, I was spending many hours discovering new fractal forms and patterns and new techniques that could be used to enhance such images. My creative self had been reborn as software and hardware became my new paintbrush and pencil. Through this process I have achieved techniques to wed digital photography with my love of the fractal. The result being reminiscent of both watercolor, printmaking, and perhaps collage.
I work on each image in several stages. First, I choose an image from my body of photographic work and refine it intuitively. Meaning that I do not have any one approach to an image but "mold" it like clay not always certain what the end result will be. This stage can take anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. Second, I work with patterns taken from a wide variety of imagery. One pattern I like tremendously is composed of barbed wire against wood. This stage I can do in conjunction with an image or not. It may take anywhere from several days to months before I achieve something to my liking. Third is the conjunction of the image with a pattern. This is where I either find successful results or frustration. I am still working on several images from various series that I know can work but have not yet emerged.
In terms of what my work means I feel that that ultimately must be subjective to the viewer. I will say that my work evokes, for me, the sense that there is always more to be seen than what is merely on the surface of a subject. So much is really going on in the macrocosmic, microcosmic, psychological, emotional, and spiritual realms that no one artist nor one type of expression can ever encompass it all.
