My work’s deepest source is my early adult life in New Orleans and childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The verdant land, hurricanes, disappearing coastline, and the calm but potentially destructive water and wind, formed my worldview.

In 1989 I moved to New Mexico, a spare, open, and vast landscape, beautiful and meditative but not always comforting. New Mexico is also a locus for experimentation in the arts, sciences, and spirituality. This includes Santa Fe as the second largest art market in the US, big science, in its two national laboratories and the birthplace of the atomic bomb, the chaos theory think tank, The Santa Fe Institute, and diverse spiritual traditions including Native American, Buddhist, Hispanic Catholicism, and New Age.

Living near Los Alamos National Labs and the Santa Fe Institute, a chaos theory think tank, has led me to a heightened interest in science, including systems, fractals, and strange attractors. Quantum physics engages with ideas around the merging of matter and spirit, the nexus of these disparate subjects introduced me to how science resides alongside many spiritual traditions. Living among these ideas set the conditions for me to consider poeticized science and notions of transcendence in my work.

I select materials for their ability to be somewhat unpredictable or have the ability to change and therefore partner with me in making the work. This process circumvents preconceived ideas and opens me to new possibilities. I engage with the image and medium in a direct and intimate way. With encaustic printing, thought and action are one, much like improvisational music or dance.

I develop my works in series and these explore the planet through different topics, as they impact my consciousness. For example, I examine ecology through intuitive mapping, as a metaphor for finding my way in rapidly changing environments.

My oversized Koan monotypes contain carbon-laden graphite — mysterious, dark, moody, almost mystical, a requiem for the earth. Like Zen Koans, they are meant to perplex and illuminate the inadequacy of logic and reason and to provoke enlightenment.

The most recent works, Ask the Runes, add an element of magic and divination, foretelling the future, and protecting against misfortune. They are a doorway into our intuitive wisdom and the wisdom and magic of the ancients.