My paintings are always explorations-experimentation with the materials and mediums at hand, a love affair with color and line and what to do with them. The evolution over the years from representational work to a contemporary and abstract style has added an element of richness and textures to the work that I so enjoy. Every painting is a new experience with old familiar tools.  An instructor once advised "paint what you know."

I am influenced by the landscape of the Mississippi Delta that has surrounded me for most of my life. These paintings are an attempt to capture the rich textures and palette of the fields and ditch banks, the streams, the acres devoted to agriculture and those that are not.

The divisions and boundaries, real or imagined are used and at times become the emphasis, but more often are simply a device with which to create visual interest. The lines are drawn or scraped into the composition to divide the canvas and move the viewer's eye from one place to another and give an indication of space.   They are a tool with which I can 'control' the space-much like the agricultural practices which have formed the actual lines and divisions in the land itself are how we attempt to maintain control over the ever-encroaching wildness that waits to reclaim what has been held at bay. If the landscape itself is metaphor for our selves and our lives, so then the roads and ditches, creeks and rivers which score and divide must then be the relationships we have with each other, both personal and cultural, the stories of those lives, the scars on our very souls.

The Delta is an enigma steeped in history and mystery, rich in cultures, 
ever-fertile and productive the mother of us all who depend on the  continuity of the seasonal rotations that  sets the productivity into motion again and again….Or maybe they're not so deep maybe they are simply the landscape that I love and what I know best.

I like to think of my work as Sophisticated Abstract.' The surface of the paintings becomes one of the more important vehicles making these paintings. I enjoy abstracts, focusing on the surface, the textures, the colors, the lines that segment the space. While almost all the spaces are shallow and flat, the layering of the paint, the mediums, the glazes and the use of various tools to get texture give them richness and depth. The process of the painting is as important and enjoyable to me as the final product.  I want the work to be irresistible to look at and to make the viewer want to come in close and touch them.