Dare Alla Luce ....... to bring or give to the light.

That is how Italians so eloquently and poetically describe giving birth. It is the same for painting.

A painting is a living entity, at least in an animistic sense complete with ritualistic magic and power.

In the beginning, a painting is a willful act. Slowly, steadily it emerges and at some point if I listen carefully enough the painting begins to speak to me. It tells me what it needs, not what I want and then it finally reveals itself. My role is that of an obedient midwife, perhaps a cosmic midwife. It is essential to understand that when a painting is a painting it is present, realized and alive. It is never finished. If it is finished, then it is stillborn, lifeless and should never see the light of day. And finally, it is the viewers themselves who complete the life cycle of any artwork as they extend the context and meaning of that work beyond the artist's studio.

As for my influences and inspirations, they are many and varied including anthropology, archaeology, geology, pictographs, petroglyphs, manuscripts, mythology, history, poetry, music, literature and science to name a few. In addition, is my personal pantheon of artists, groups and movements from the ancient to the contemporary including Egyptian, Greek and Roman painting, Art Brut, Childrens Art, Outsider, Self Taught, and Visionary Art, American Folk Art of the South, German Expressionism, Neo Expressionism, Modernism and Postmodernism. I am overwhelmingly drawn to artists like Goya, Picasso, Guston, Ensor, Baselitz, Meese, Penck, Dubuffet, Wiley, Finster and R.A. Miller among others. It is this great admiration and respect I have for their work which assuredly inspires my own art.