That brilliant, blazing energy, brighter than a thousand suns, it is locked up in everything. Now imagine this. Imagine you're seeing it. Like you see aureoles around buddhas. Like you see the beautiful vision at the end of Dante's 'Paradiso.' Vivid, vivid light, so bright that it is like the clear light of the void in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It's beyond light, it's so bright. And you watch it receeding from you. And on the edges, like a great star, there becomes a rim of red. And beyond that, a rim of orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. You see this great mandela appearing this great sun, and beyond the violet, there's black. Black, like obsidian, not flat black, but transparent black, like lacquer. And again, blazing out of the black, as the _yang_ comes from the _yin_, more light. Going, going, going. And along with this light, there comes sound. There is a sound so tremendous with the white light that you can't hear it, so piercing that it seems to annihilate the ears. But then along with the colors, the sound goes down the scale in harmonic intervals, down, down, down, down, until it gets to a deep thundering base which is so vibrant that it turns into something solid, and you begin to get the similar spectrum of textures. Now all this time, you've been watching a kind of thing radiating out. 'But,' it says, 'you know, this isn't all I can do,' and the rays start dancing like this, and the sound starts waving, too, as it comes out, and the textures start varying themselves, and they say, well, you've been looking at this this as I've been describing it so far in a flat dimension. Let's add a third dimension; it's going to come right at you now. And meanwhile, it says, we're not going to just do like this, we're going to do little curlicues. And it says, 'well, that's just the beginning!' Making squares and turns, and then suddenly you see in all the little details that become so intense, that all kinds of little subfigures are contained in what you originally thought were the main figures, and the sound starts going all different, amazing complexities if sound all over the place, and this thing's going, going, going, and you think you're going to go out of your mind, when suddenly it turns into... Why, us, sitting around here.

My journey with my art began in my high school years after I was shown the work of the Surrealists of the early 20th century. I became interested in their research into the workings of the mind and spontaneity in art, and was also motivated by my own interest in metaphysics. During a day in class, I was working with an old brush and india ink. I smashed the brush about without thought and saw imagery form before my eyes on the paper that I could not have dreamed of. Many attempts followed after that ink drawing, but it seemed I could not tap into that creative moment again. During the many years to follow, I would refrain from art instruction and its history in an attempt to limit my influences. I wanted my work to be pure, to come out of the void with as few contaminates as possible. I worked in acrylic, collage, pencil, inks, and assemblage, spending the next 20 years seemingly getting nowhere.
In 1995, I became interested in eastern philosophies, which led me to the art of mandalas. These sacred circles seemed to have all the elements I was looking for...a mixture of science, eastern philosophies, spontaneity, and a deep search into the workings of the mind and the cosmos. Then in the winter of 1997, my newly furnished art studio burned to the ground and I lost all I had done up to that point. I stopped creating art for three years after the fire. I was frustrated and wanted this unrelenting force to create within me to go away, but it would not.
After three years had passed, I worked with mandalas for a short amount of time but seemed to feel constrained by the boundaries of the circle. I then decided to do more conventional art such as pencil drawings, acrylic paintings, and pyrography of the town I lived in, and give up the idea of seeking to express the surreal metaphysical concepts I had thought about in the past. I was happy with some of my new work, but was still haunted by my former ideas. In 2003, I decided to make one more attempt at my spontaneous idea. I took a 3’x4’ piece of white paper and began drawing, to my surprise the drawing flowed upon the paper with ease. Within a month of non-stop drawing I produced what would be my first Dream Matter piece.
Below are the concepts which made up my mindset during drawing sessions. This set of concepts has become background noise. Now, I simply draw. I prefer that the viewer experience it without any knowledge of my personal interpretation. The viewer’s experience should be free from borders or concepts, allowing for a unique interpretation as the artwork is absorbed by the psyche.
Dream Matter is my attempt to discover the natural artistic expression, the core of creation, which resides within me and in doing so, tap into the very stream which flows through all phenomena. The Taoists of China gave this flowing stream the name “ Li,” which has been translated as organic patterning. I wish not to draw the cosmos, but to express the underlying force beneath it, to allow this creative stream the freedom to express itself. I work in a manner that is an expression of the Taoist idea known as Wu Wei, which in western terms could be defined as spontaneous and not forcing. This allows my Dream Matter pieces to come into being in a sui generis manner.
Dream Matter can be looked upon as one does ink blots or looking for images in clouds. The images that arise will fluctuate in a constant state of change. This fluctuation is symbolic of the fluctuation of phenomena in reality and in the conscious and subconscious states of the mind. The title of my work came about as I watched these images change their mental representations, the idea emerged of a fluid matter similar to unformed dreams. While I draw, I think of the cosmos and the microcosm expanding infinitely. My thoughts on this concept were also influenced by the lectures of the scholar Alan Watts.
I draw with my pencil the cosmic dance, rendering from the primordial ooze the myriad things.

Exhibits:

April - May 2005 /Showcase/ Plaza Arts Center / Healdsburg CA
November - December 2005 / “In the Abstract” - Juried Show / Sebastopol Center for the Arts
Dec 05 - January 06 / Members Show / Sebastopol Center for the Arts / Sebastopol CA
June - July 2006 / Showcase / Plaza Arts Center / Healdsburg CA
Direct Art Magazine / Fall / Winter Issue 2006 - Juried Competition
November 5 - November 11 2006 / Miniatures at the Manor - Juried Show / Plaza Arts Center / Healdsburg CA
Nov. 12, 2006 / Madrona Manor Benefit - Juried Show / Healdsburg CA

I have also been chosen for the " Emerging Artist 2007 Show" Hudson, New York. April 2007/ Direct Art Magazine Fall/ Winter 2007 issue