Field Notes

A working scrapbook of images, notes, and fragments gathered over decades—pieces of memory, curiosity, and observation that continue to surface as I revisit a life in art.

A short piece written after running the Bay to Breakers in San Francisco on May 17, 1987. What began as a race quickly revealed itself as something closer to street theater—part carnival, part political satire, and entirely San Francisco.

Earlier this year, I applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship.What I didn’t anticipate was how much the application process would demand personally. I revisited more than 40 years of work. Slides. Early digital manipulations. Paintings. Mixed media. Thousands of images I hadn’t seen in decades.

One of my earliest published pieces, written for the John Deere Journal in 1974, long before I imagined a life centered on art. Even then I was drawn to questions about what motivates people to work, think, and persist—questions that still echo through my photography and painting.

A reflection on painting as a process of chaos, discovery, and restraint—where the artist begins in wild motion and gradually learns to listen to what the canvas is trying to become.

For an artist, there’s nothing as daunting yet exciting as facing a blank canvas. The possibilities are infinite; and so are the risks. My approach is to simply make some brush strokes or marks or splashes of paint and see what that triggers. I try to keep the process an in-the-moment improv dance between eye, […]

A studio reflection on painting as a kind of sparring match—testing ideas, throwing paint like punches, and staying alert for the unexpected moment when the canvas reveals something new.

A look at the evolution of a photo painting—from the original photograph through the layered digital and painted stages that gradually transform it into something new.

Spring Sentinel, Paris France 2016 Don’t take yourself too seriously, seems to be the statement this stately pigeon sentinel is making from his or her perch on a stately but aging sculpture in Tuileries Garden in Paris, France. I made the photograph in March, 2016, just as spring blooms were starting to burst. A walk […]

I’ve often paired my photos with favorite scripture. This is a sampling. Jacksonville Beach, Florida 2011 Las Vegas, 2012 Las Vegas, 2012 Las Vegas, 2012 Las Vegas, 2012

This was one of those, you see it, you react photos. The flag pole juxtaposed with the young tree and grass says something about how we coexist with nature, and vice-versa. Darkness is approaching but there is always light where your help comes from.

Downtown Tampa, Florida, 2016.

Downtown Tampa, Florida, near the Museum of Contemporary Art. March, 2016

Downtown Tampa, Florida. March, 2016