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Landscape is the foundation of my inspiration. I often work more from memory or an impression than from a particular place. The compositions are the framework on which I hang a sequence of layered colors in rhythmic patterns to create a mood and a harmonious image. Using reduction printing techniques and (often) multiple blocks allows me a level of complexity which suits my drive to create artworks which evoke my imaginings, my experiences and my creations. The technical challenges and severe limitations of the medium have become a part of my natural vocabulary over time. I have become fluent in that I frequently change aspects of my original design as I go along, sometimes adding additional blocks as I progress. I never plan my palette as I’ve found the results of that rather unpredictable. The process of carving and printing an edition offers me much, meditative time to consider every aspects of each print as I am working. Most of the decisions about color are made during this time according to what has come before in the sequence of printing. In reduction printing I only get one chance to get it right. The study of landscape/nature is the study of the very fabric of the material world. Such a focus reveals patterns which consistently build from within much larger patterns. The Chinese concept of Li, or natural structures of the physical world, views such repeated patterns as branching off of the vast over-pattern(s) of reality (Tao). Recognizing and absorbing those patterns into carved variations, then dressing them with color provides a framework for my explorations of mood and composition.