I paint from observation because I need to wrestle with choices outside of my own imagination. The visible world provides my raw material for making an image and I select and emphasize how to give it form. I value familiar objects because they seem so different and surprising when you look beyond their mere identity. Tone provides structure to the composition, and color provides the vitality in making light and space appear. Intuition and the paint itself guide much of my response during the intense flurry of activity while painting, yet the paintings are revised and reconsidered all along the way -- where the means and the end become one.