I’ve always been a big reader, so it’s no surprise that book illustration has been an early and enduring inspiration. I still have a childhood book in which I added to the illustrations with enthusiastic scribbles. The first drawing instruction I received was from my great aunt, who had been a fashion illustrator for her local southern Indiana paper. She gave me my first kneaded eraser. Later, I came to love the comics in the Sunday papers, and I even developed one my own featuring a tough, cigarette-smoking tomcat. I didn’t realize it at the time, but many of the illustrations that so intrigued me were lithographs or other kinds of prints. And, although I never studied printmaking in depth, the look of the etched lines and overlapping washes of color, as well as the variations and imperfections in the print process, remain at the heart of my visual sensibility. 

The best illustrations deepen the mystery of the story, but they still work in service of an existing idea. When I begin a canvas, I don’t know anything. I don’t have an idea, and I may not even have a feeling. For me, it’s not always easy to understand how I feel or why I feel a certain way. But I can sometimes figure it out through process of drawing lines, painting, erasing, overpainting, starting over and, always, lots of watching and looking. But I’m not just paying attention to my canvas. I’m also paying attention to my body’s reaction to the work. It’s not always a comfortable process, and my feeling about the work will often change over time.  I know it’s getting close to completion when I, usually all at once, recognize something true in it. It feels less like an accomplishment and more like a discovery.

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I live in Brooklyn, New York. I earned a BA in English and Classical Literature from Indiana University. When I was 12 years old, my great aunt taught me to draw, and I've been doing it ever since.