"How I see things is my truth. The information I take from life, I translate into my terms on a flat canvas. It is an expression of emotions, evoked by forms and colors of the natural world, and the enduring relationships between them.  I am very much taken with landscapes. My goal is to convey the essence of a landscape, while eliminating much of its detail; similar to that first impression, or the large shapes you see when your eyes are half open. I am interested in structure, gesture, color, and sequence of color. Of particular interest is the development of a composition, or, how the canvas is divided. Where does the viewer enter and explore? How does the eye travel from one point to another?   Influences for my work are primarily from impressionism, the Tonalist Movement and abstract expressionism, including the work of Paul Cezanne, George Inness and Joan Mitchell, and the art of Viennese painter Gustav Klimt."