The concept of order, disorder, and reordering is central to my work. Scientists talk of order and randomness, of entropy, and of eternity's eventual end when all differences disappear. Yet, I am an optimist. I see life as an anti-entropic force for order. In my work, I constantly propose not a duality of life and death, but an endless cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

I explore systems of knowledge by translating philosophical concepts into aesthetic visual experiences.

My paintings honor differences among cultures by utilizing symbols and words that represent concepts shared by people of widely different philosophic worldviews. I hope that, by exposing people to the beliefs of others and by showing the interconnectedness of one belief system to another, each of us may experience a common compassion.

I studied many systems of knowledge during the last forty years, both ones well known and those more esoteric; incorporating these teachings into my life and into my art is an evolving process.

I work in series, beginning a new series with an entirely different visual approach after I solve the aesthetic challenges of my then current series. I investigate the healing potential of images in all my series, often employing pilgrimage and other ritualistic acts in the creation processes. I use word and/or myth-like visual elements from many philosophic and religious systems (including Native American healing practices, Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, the I-Ching, Jewish mysticism as taught in the Cabala, and the chakra system of Hinduism) in order to facilitate communication with viewers on both conscious and unconscious levels.

The "Word" in Paint
Often, I purposely "hide" words in paintings. Words may be seen behind the paint and, sometimes deciphered, in whole or part; however, viewers can not conciously read the "word/Word." One reason for hiding words, phrases and symbols behind paint is that I believe art works on the Jungian unconsciousness, conscious knowledge not being required. Viewers may recognize a message lays buried behind the paint, but that message remains unreadable in its entirety, even when examined closely. Anyone who consciously tries to "get the message" will not. Yet, in this striving, I believe viewers will succeed unconsciously . . . one of the many mysteries of life and art.

I first inserted a literal "Word" into my art in 1993 in a series A Verse for the Eleventh Hour (1993) employing the poem The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats. A related series, A Story for the Eleventh Hour (1993), includes words and symbols within the paintings and, importantly, references to the poetry of T. S. Eliot, particularly Burnt Norton (one of The Four Quartets) and The Waste Land.

Beginning with the Shen Qi series (1996-1999), I placed symbols in such a manner that they might be seen, but were obscured. In Shen Qi and its closely related, following series, States of Change (1999-2001), these symbols alluded to universal sources of human wisdom.

During the development of the next two series, Visible Reminders (2002-2003) and Tree of Life (2002), I incorporated phrases and symbols from Cabala and the bible into the paintings. Increasingly, the ability to read the written message within the painting is obscured as these two series develop.

My latest series, The Thirteenth Moon (2005-2006), evolves as I continue exploring painterly methods of visualizing different philosophic systems of human experience. The overall visual appearance of the work in this series changes significantly, even though the concept of order, disorder, and reordering continues. At the beginning of this new series, I persisted in disguising words behind the paint within central area of the painting.

  © 2005
ID #674

The concept of a thirteenth moon also may remind many that the annual cycle of twelve months does not correspond precisely to twelve, twenty-eight day lunar periods. The Thirteenth Moon may metaphorically be viewed as a symbol of the continuous renewing of life, since it may bridge the last portion of an old year with the first portion of the new.

But the series evolved. I moved the poetry from central area to a painted frame and began painting "symbolist landscapes" featuring the moon.

 © 2005
ID #676

I continue painting symbolist landscapes, but now use poetry from the two of the most famous poets of China:

Translated by Sam Hamill
A Drifting Boat, edited by J.P. Seaton and Dennis Maloney, Fredonia, NY.: White Pine Press, 1994) [38]

Translated by Sam Hamill
A Drifting Boat, edited by J.P. Seaton and Dennis Maloney, Fredonia, NY.: White Pine Press, 1994) [38]

"The moon has risen, and its silver beams
  Across the Lan-Tien Pass in beauty glow,
While we sit idly on the vessel's side
  And watch the nodding peaks in depths below"

Du Fu, also Romanized as Tu Fu,
(712 - 770 A.C.E, Chinese) from The Waters of the Mei-Pei, trans. Budd, Charles

The waters heave with burdensome unrest,
  The air is full of shadows of the dead;
The Spirits of the Universe are near,
  And we cannot divine their portents dread.

And such is life—an hour of changing scenes
  Of fitful joy and quickly following grief;
An hour of buoyant youth in rapid flight,
And then old age to end life—sad and brief!"  

Most frequently, I have "hidden" symbols or the “Word/word” in the sense that a viewer may recognize something appears within the visual field; however, even when an individual word may be discerned, the message may not be read.

Allowing the word in paint to become more apparent (as in my latest series, The Thirteenth Moon) raises the possibility that viewers/readers holding one belief system may feel that art alluding to a different belief system confronts their beliefs. When I allow the "word" to be visually recognized, using poetry rather than wisdom from a specific belief system helps convey the underlying wisdom in a non-confrontational manner. Visualizing the word also honors the great Islamic calligraphic tradition wherein the Word may be visualized, but where representational renditions may not be acceptable.

Frames, Grids and Gestures
I began employing painted frames with A Story for the Eleventh Hour (1993) by applying material along the edge of the shaped canvas used for paintings in this series. The "painted frame" reinforced the themes of cosmological and spiritual journeys of being by creating a window from which the viewer may look out into the universe and inward into themselves.

I continued using shaped canvas and golden-edged "frames" with Shen Qi (1996-1997) and States of Change (1999-2000); however, I began organizing the central area of the painting as a grid. (The use of a grid, while pre-dating modern art, reflects the thinking that, " . . . before a painting is a painting, it is a piece of canvas.”). The golden "squares" applied in grid fashion create order, an order that is counterbalanced by the chaos and randomness of the disorder created by violating the form of the individual golden squares.

Overall, an image of order, disorder and reordering

In Tree of Life (2002), I painted a frame upon the canvas; by the time of The Fire and the Rose (2003-2005) series, the painted frame "binds" and "orders" the apparently "disordered" interior to this central “window” wherein the seeming order created by horizontal “rows” of hidden words and horizontal paint strokes may be disordered by seemingly random vertical drips.

In many of the later works of The Fire and the Rose, fluid, gestural brush strokes violate any appearance of order, thereby adding energy by visually generating an illusion of ordering (by the grid of ordered horizontal lines and vertical drips), disordering (by the gestural strokes), and reordering (by the painted frame).