Why I do it

I paint because my father does. Using oil & wax, my pallet is an old glass tabletop. Empty tuna cans hold the wax on a hot plate. A torch for heating the brands that melt into the surface, hisses off to my left. From the pallet, to trowel, to brush... to canvas. Each time it’s this surprise, this step along the path. It is improvisation and sometimes random. 

Abstract painting is a way of thinking, and there is no destination. Difficult work may be more important than resolved work because it keeps you moving. Churning through ideas until the layers are thick with experience and history. 

My earliest influence was my dad, Harry. Followed by the New York School abstract expressionists, the post NYS neo abstract painters of the sixties, seventies and eighties, the faculty at SVA including: Susan Crile, Don Eddy, Burt Hasen, Michael Loew, Michael Goldberg, Joe Pearlman, George Ortman, Hannah Wilke and John Button.