I GREW UP IN CANADA, under a big sky and have always felt the formation of clouds, storms, and sunsets up there was similar to the formation of ideas, or impulses, in the creative mind. That turbulence. You don't know how it's going to turn out; but you know it’s coming; you can feel it, like an approaching storm. Since my art is an attempt to understand my own creativity —why it's happening, what's nudging it along, and what that turbulence feels like— I've been painting skies. But I have a new and unusual technique. I begin with oils and acrylics, painting semi-abstract jumbles. Then I use my camera to explore the work from extreme angels, thereby discovering entirely new horizons that didn't exist before. It’s a technique that allows me to use perspective twice; once in the initial painting using lines and color, and a second time in-camera using angles, cropping, focus, and depth of field. I’m after the feeling of expanse, the ever-changing expanse within the creative mind. I etch them into iridescent metal to create what I think of as “neuro landscapes", or MRIs of creativity in progress.
