Painting is a physical struggle, moving with intent in every brushstroke, or not moving at all until something has to be said ‘this way.’ I don’t sit down when I paint, I run 100 mph, between the painting table and the easel, or, I am standing still for long periods of time waiting for the paint to tell my hands what to do. My painting has an immediacy to it, which, nonetheless, may have taken weeks and maybe months to complete. Technique and skill are the consequence of the concept in the painting; with the change of concept, they, too, change. Landscapes in crayon have a dictate separate from the dictate of abstract painting in oil, on canvas. Working from life, (a vase, a figure, tree, a mountain, clouds), gives rise to new shapes for the abstract painting. I look to nature for the essence of space, which is always alive and moving. How I place shapes together is the construction of the painting, ‘where’ they exist in space in relationship to each other. What is the distance between the objects, how do I get the space between them to move? I always look for light, presence, mood, feeling.