Cardinal Suite, a set of four mural size (10' X 24') paintings, executed in 1984-86, is based on motifs distilled from ideas about natural and abstract forms. Each painting depicts a single monochrome form painted in one of the three primary colors, plus green. The four elements form a complementary set of symbols, together constituting a symbolic microcosm reflecting on the relationship between humankind and cosmic creation.
The Easter Cycle, a suite of ten paintings from 1985, considers the connections between art's spiritual roots and those of religion and psychology. Through the use of basic geometric elements rendered in expressive, painterly gestures the suite compares the awakening and flowering of nature during the onset of springtime with the psychological processes of individuation and spiritual sublimation. Evoking the themes of growth, resurrection and transcendence through the use of the rectangular mandala form as the combined symbol of nature and the human psyche, these paintings are meditations on the duality of human life, as they affirm the indissoluble bond between spirit and matter.
Ode to Nature, a suite of twelve paintings from 1985-86, explores natural structures throughout different levels of life: from the subatomic to the cosmic, and from the mineral to the organic. These elemental, yet compositionally complex paintings express the harmony of natural law underlying Creation.
The Rhapsodies, a series of fifteen paintings from 1986, celebrates the process of creation from the metaphysical level of archetypes to their material manifestation in the universe of form. Partly about nature and partly about the realm of abstract ideas, the Rhapsodies trace the transmutation of concepts into manifest forms across the subtle boundary between energy and matter.
The Birth of Venus, a series of twenty paintings from 1987, considers the realm of pure abstraction: that divine dimension of infinite potential prior to creation. Venus, the goddess of beauty and art, was born from the undifferentiated ocean through divine conception. These paintings, pregnant with the potential of infinite manifestation, are metaphoric of the abstract, dimensionless realm of First Principles. They evoke the initial stirrings of the creative process, as pure thought conceives the distinctions and organizing principles underlying the universe of forms.
The Diamonds, a series of 52 diamond shaped canvases from 1988-92, concentrates on the expressive qualities of this dynamic and graceful form. At once self-contained and expansive, symbolic of inner strength and outward radiance, the diamond embodies the principles of growth and contraction, emptiness and fullness characteristic of universal life cycles.
White Diamonds | Black Diamonds | Blue Diamonds
Green Diamonds | Yellow Diamonds | Red Diamonds
A Cappella, a suite from 1990, consists of 32 diamond shaped paintings. Originally installed at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, the individual paintings act as unique voices within the context of the larger group to speak of the range of inner spiritual and emotional experience. [A Cappella - Italian: "in the church style," performance of a polyphonic (multipart) musical work by unaccompanied voices. Originally referring to sacred choral music, the term now refers to secular music as well.]
In the Garden Drawings, a suite of 15 charcoal, pastel and india ink drawings from 1982-84 explores and summarizes some of the graphic possibilities of a visual vocabulary of complementary signs and symbols derived from studies of sacred geometry and natural morphology.
Ode to Venus, I and 
Ode to Venus, II, a related series of charcoal and pastel drawings from 1986 are variations on the segmented rectangle and the four-way loop. The harmonies and symmetries of these drawings' fluid, intersecting lines are visual songs of praise to Venus's feminine beauty and radiance.
In the Beginning, a series of large, drypoint-monotype intaglio prints from 1987, constitutes a poetic visual interpretation of Biblical and modern creation myths describing the origin and development of the Universe. Using a graphic vocabulary of simple abstract forms the images in the suite progress from states of formlessness, through primary spatial conceptions, to evolved shapes metaphorical of the cosmic emergence of order out of chaos, and of life forms from organized matter and energy.
The Big Universe, a suite of drypoint-monotype prints from 1979-80 explores broad-pattern universal structures. To make drypoint-monotype prints simple linear compositions are first "drypoint" scratched with a steel stylus onto large, (36" X 24") copper plates. When thick etching ink is rubbed on the plates with tarlatan, the grooved designs and wiped surfaces hold the ink, forming an image. A unique "monotype" print is created when a moistened sheet of printmaking paper is placed upon an inked copper plate and "pulled" through an etching press, transferring the image onto the paper.
Nocturnes, a suite of ten large, drypoint-monotype prints presents an abstract study of the shifting interplay between light and darkness, suggestive of the moonlit night sky.
Constellations, a suite of 14 etchings from 1987 combining splattered droplet forms with cloud-like formations and looping interconnecting lines offer glimpses of the universe's nether regions where star clusters and nebulous gas regions inhabit the birthplace of cosmic creation.
Ode to Spring, a suite of nine etchings, evokes the pageantry of nature's creative exhuberance in springtime's awakening.
In the Garden Etchings, nine volumes of small etchings from 1991-92, comprising a suite of 133, together constitute an encyclopedic survey of the abstract signs, gestures and forms underlying the formal graphic foundation of the artist's work.
In the Garden, I | In the Garden, II | In the Garden, III
In the Garden, IV | In the Garden, V | In the Garden, VI
In the Garden, VII | In the Garden, VIII | In the Garden, IX
The Marriage of Heaven and Earth, a suite of 60 drypoint-monotype prints was suggested by the Increase hexagram from the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes. Referring to "...a time of progress and successful development...," the hexagram's text alludes to a time resembling "...that of the marriage of heaven and earth, when the earth partakes of the creative power of heaven, forming and bringing forth living beings". The suite evokes the diversity of universal creation resulting from the happy union of Heaven and Earth, or spirit and matter, through the symbolic visual interaction of two basic graphic elements: the cruciform and the loop. "Heaven," symbolizing the masculine aspect, represented by crossed vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines, and "Earth," the feminine, receptive aspect, able to "bring forth living beings," represented by a curved line enclosing an inner space. Reflecting on this simple duality, the suite explores the metaphorical correspondences between artistic and universal creation.
In a New Mexico Winter Garden, a suite of 90 digital color photographs from 2005, describes an intimate tour of the artist's desert garden in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico during January, when tentative new seedlings begin to emerge amid the remains of fall's decay, heralding a new springtime...
Guest Artists' Galleries, a subjective selection of guest artists' works representing the rich variety of visual expression.
Lysergide | Earth Echo | Jackson Dembar | Karen Fitzgerald
Christopher English | Paul Brouns | Bill Davidson | Bernie Hughes
Art by Shoe
Artist's Statement
My recent paintings are part of a continuing series of painting-cycles begun in 1984 exploring diverse aspects of cosmic creation. They deal in part with the evolution of universally significant pictorial systems from elemental, abstract marks and forms.
The connections between basic spatial configurations in nature and art were some of the starting points of my explorations of how the "grammar" of rhythm and energy activates principles of Sacred Geometry to create natural forms.
In considering art as a metaphor for cosmic creation, and of the artist for the Prime Creator, my work is concerned with how things come to be, and with how and what they may become.
Art's ability to encompass the fields of physical science, psychology, philosophy, religion and myth enables it to weave meaningful images out of the individual strands of knowledge from other, more restrictively focused disciplines. Future works will continue this wide-ranging exploration of how meaning emerges in abstract art and in art's potential for providing insight into the nature of life.
I like to make paintings that are alive, that breathe and glow, that are light, enduring; that are nourishing, healing and benign; that are generous, grand and expansive; that reflect the brightest sublime expression of all that is best and highest in us.
