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 In a world that often seems fractured and threatening, I present viewers of my work with images inspired by the poetry and interconnectedness of the natural world.I gather visual and spiritual moments on the hiking trail --- the interactions of light and shadow with the myriad forms of the vegetation, rocks, and waterways of the Pacific Northwest. Back in my studio, I reconsider, rearrange, and improvise on these timeless instants, as in the jazz music often playing in the background as I work. Like that of the Chinese literati of the 11th century onward, my work arises from the contemplation of nature, and is about my mind's encounter with the subject. I have studied Chinese calligraphy, qi gong, and Sogetsu School ikebana --- multiple modalities for sculpting line and space. Since moving to the Pacific Northwest, I have been primarily exploring this environment through printmaking, particularly monotype and solarplate etching. The printmaking medium has a built-in element of surprise --- the image on the paper is always the reverse of that of the plate. The results of each pass through the press present new options on the decision tree, like forks in the hiking trail. I have been fortunate to study with Dan Welden, who invented the non-toxic solarplate etching process, and Ron Pokrasso, an accomplished Santa Fe printmaker proficient in the use of non-toxic materials. I am grateful to them for sharing their printmaking knowledge so generously with their students. The Larrabee Suite Larrabee, located on the shores of Samish Bay in Bellingham, is the oldest state park in Washington. Its beaches are graced with intricately eroded formations of Chuckanut sandstone. The stone has formed frozen waves, sensuous curves, intricate folds, and masses of honeycombed indentations. This ongoing series of prints examines close-up areas of the cliffs. These abstract compositions are a springboard for explorations of scale, form, color, and mark-making techniques. Often the results have a monumental quality, even though they arise from paying close attention to small details. As a sometime poet and word puzzler, I was pleased to read in the dictionary that the word "suite" not only means "a group of things forming a unit or constituting a collection" and "a modern instrumental composition in several movements of different character," but also "a collection of minerals or rocks having some characteristic in common (as type or origin)." I pay homage to all three meanings in the Larrabee Suite.
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