When I draw, I begin by observing.  I work from specimens, sketching and photographing to compose a final image.  I’m absorbed by the task of paying attention and rendering forms and surfaces.  The closer I look, though, the less clear things seem.   Despite my care, the subjects continue to elude me – they are mysterious and vulnerable.  Sometimes they resemble other things.  Images evolve as objectivity gives way to the process of drawing.  The drawings embody both the desire to understand, to capture truth, through patient analysis and an awareness of the ultimate impossibility of this attempt.

My  series Bone Drawings  was inspired by traditions of trompe l’oeil painting, natural history and scientific illustration.  Like those forms of imagery, bones attempt to be a permanent record – they last beyond death - and symbolize underlying truth.  

Common Garden Variety  is a series of large drawings influenced by botanical illustration and completed over the span of a decade.  During this time I was teaching drawing at a botanical garden in a city while living in a rural area and visiting small market gardens.  I was struck by the contrast between the display of exotic tropical plants and the striking beauty of ordinary utilitarian ones: fruits, vegetables, and flowers that I encountered in my daily life.  Sometimes there would be considerable time between drawings as I waited for a particular form or perspective to move me.

The Rope Drawings evolved from a series of small doodles which began to uncoil and move across the pages of my sketchbook.  To develop them further I used a piece of rope, found in a corner of my studio.  Rope can symbolize limits, binding and constraining, yet as I played with it, it became like a little animated figure.  I was intrigued by how the rope became a source of creativity rather than a restraint.  My children were very young then and I had little freedom to make art - I felt like I was making art out of nothing.  

In the large works I used the rope to tell stories and to respond to specific sites.  In Animas (literally, a soul or living being) I imagined a rope coming to life, leaping and twisting before coming gently to rest.  Fall is a drawing about transition:  begun as a braid, it dissolves and unwinds, spilling down the wall and onto the floor.  In Fling the rope was flung on the ground then photographed and drawn to simulate a group of dancing figures.   I was struck by how they became alive by moving from the floor to the wall - a metaphor for drawing.