More than twenty years ago I wrote a project proposal titled "Art Mind/ Science Mind," in which I waxed poetic about learning to reconcile and nurture two tracks of interest: exploring "Nature" and making "Art".  It was going to be right brain/left brain taken to The Next Level. I was going to write poems, paint pictures, and have all the answers in twelve weeks.

It was an embarrassingly smarmy proposal, full of big, romantic ideas but no real goal and no practical plan. It didn't even make it past the first committee review.

Looking at the work I've created in the intervening years, I realize that, despite myself, I have been engaged in that project ever since. It has been a lot longer than twelve weeks, but I think I've finally started to understand the questions. (Never mind the answers.) My varied interests are still with me, still engaged in battles for dominance, and no closer to reconciliation. Record or respond? Explain or explore? Analyze or interpret? Sit still and draw? Or wander about to see what the spring wind has brought today?

And when I pick up a pencil, brush, or gouge, the battle still rages: Slow and careful rendering? Or vigorous, gestural mark making? Pencil, watercolor, or linocut?

I like to think that my work records the constant conversation between my analyzing mind and my creating heart. Each piece represents a moment of accord, or at least compromise, between the desires to express what a thing looks like and what it feels like. Most of the images are of plants, animals, and vistas near my home, but many come from travels, and a few begin as dreams. All reflect a journey barely glimpsed two decades ago, a path that continues to call, "This way."

"No. THIS way."