The rhythm of printmaking by hand lends itself to contemplation. Once I am in printing mode, I find that I am both working with my hands and going elsewhere inside.

December 23 was a printmaking morning for me, and also a day of thinking. Thirty two years ago on that day my daughter was born. How has that passage of time and the accumulation of experience and memory occurred?

I do not write this in the sense of, “Wow! Time sure does fly!”  That, of course, is something we all experience.

I am wondering about the mechanism of memory and time. Are there specific cells in my brain which hold specific pictures and sounds? As all of our body cells are dying and recreating constantly, how, then, do we retain those memories? Where are they?

Thirty two years ago my daughter was a wonderful new being — warm, squirming, fascinating, and, as I realized I actually knew nothing about babies, a little terrifying. Today she is a warm and wonderful young woman. Such transformation, such experiences.

Exactly how all this occurs is my first unanswered question. (Admittedly, a large and vague question. The stuff of science.)

What to do with it is the second. (The stuff of art)

I take my artmaking seriously. I believe I am doing my best, most interesting  and most meaningful work when it digs at least a little below surface and aesthetic considerations and touches meanings or memory and experience. Each of us, when we create, is bringing to the work all that we are, all that we know, and all that we don’t know.

Can my work be both visually compelling and thought-provoking?

Can I create work that touches memory and experience in another person?

Does the work need representational subject matter to do that? Can abstract forms and colors communicate as well?

The unfolding and continuing of this second question is what keeps me interested.

Below: A few works that felt, as I created them,
drawn from inner experience.

“Find Something Real to Remember” (DETAIL) On my web site, HERE

“Where You Have Long Since Forgotten” On my web site HERE

“Neither Up Nor Down” on my web site HERE

“Flight of the Magical Lawnchair” On my web site HERE

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