PATTERNS AND TONES

"Destination: Point Reyes No. 1" 2018 Making not taking photographs is important to me. I want to add to the lexicon of imagery, not take something away from it. While traveling last year, I focused on crafting a narrative that would encapsulate the feeling of each place I visited in five images. Like portraiture, landscapes evoke emotions we immediately interpret from our own personal experiences. Those interpretations lead us to read images differently whether they are faces or places. For example in  Destination: Palm Springs , for me the images I made of the desert, with its sandy floor decorated in brittle vegetation and bathed in hard light, conjures feelings of anticipation and vigilance. I want you to experience the powerful wind whipping sand across your face and the dry heat beating down on you. In todays body of work shot at  Point Reyes National Seashore , when I look at these images I feel a sense of trust and contentment. They are quite images that al...

“Artichokes in August: Inside the Thistle” 2018 As I weave my way through my travels this summer, I have been happily come in contact with other artists who are exploring their part of the world in various ways. On a recent trip to the timeless village of Inverness, located on the cape of Point Reyes Seashore , fate brought me to the doorstep of local painter and educator Inez Storer . We enjoyed a lengthy discussion about her multi-media process and shared stories about my mentor and teacher Jack Welpott , who used to work and live right down the street from her studio, as well as John Gutmann who had started the Fine Art Photography department at my alma mater San Francisco State University where she first started teaching back in 1969. I showed her images I have been working on from various series when she noticed the woven apples and artichokes. She quickly drew the parallel between the images and the monumental grid work  Chuck Close  has created over the...

"Marshall Boat Works No. 7" 2014 Last year I spent a week on the northeastern shore of  Tomales Bay , a beautiful inlet of the Pacific Ocean just north of San Francisco. The bay actually forms the eastern boundary of  Point Reyes National Seashore  which is geographically separated from the continental United States by a fault zone.  Known for their  oysters farms  and fisheries, Tomales Bay is a wild and largely unspoiled stretch of land. With a bit of time to explore, I was able to meander around the various towns that dotted either side of the bay with time to think about shape and form.  Between eating the last of the oysters to be pulled out of  Drakes Bay  at  Tony's Seafood Restaurant  and spending time at the seashore, I was visually drawn to Marshall Boat Works where I ended up walking around, marveling at the watery vessels docked on dry land. The boats were in various states of disrepair and were just th...