The technique used in these paintings is encaustic.  Oil paint is mixed with microcrystalline wax for pigmentation and then melted.  The molten mixture is applied to wood panels in numerous layers and allowed to cool, at which time marks are drawn and carved into the surface.  The multiple layers create rich surface textures as well as opportunities for translucent images to subtly emerge from below the surface.  Images and text are drawn onto the surface of the raw wood, serving as the first layer or ‘under painting’.  These words and marks are a sort of journal with intentions and prayers, both global and personal, which influence and suggest the images that emerge on the upper layers as the painting. Common themes in the current series are our relationship to others on our life’s journey and our spiritual connection to all around us.  Vessels and containers, images repeated in many of the paintings, are often symbols for the individual human life.

In the course of my career as an artist, which has spanned over twenty-five years, I have experimented with a variety of media. In fact, a unifying theme of the work is the experimental use of materials, including handmade paper, silk, clay tiles, sheet metal, and antique wooden architectural elements.  The current encaustic paintings are a natural evolution for me as an artist—rather that using actual objects added to the surface of the painting to create texture, the ‘wax paint’ itself creates the texture and surface relief.  It is my hope that the energy of the physical process of painting with encaustic—that quick application of molten wax, the reheating and manipulation of the surface with heat guns and irons—combined with the inherent energy of the text and images-- will be sensed and felt when the work is viewed.