The Cat's Pajamasaa 36x60

Higher Than the Soul Can Hopeaa 36x72

Eye on the Prizeaa 36x48

Exile!aa 36x48

I can't say this better than Clarissa Pinkola Estes who says that, "Everyone needs one friend who believes that your gift is the cat's pajamas... Everybody, plants, trees turn toward the sun - friends who have warmth for your creative life and love for you are the very best things in the world!" I dedicate this painting to Quinn because she believes my work is the cat's pajamas.

From the e.e. cummings poem:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

I heard it said recently that artists have to have faith and it's true, we do. In a culture that says you can't earn a living following your heart, doing your soul's work, we must believe. Quinn and I have coined a phase to help us remember to believe when we're being challenged. It is simply this: eye on the prize. Our prize is the great honor of earning our livings making art and living artful lives.

The Ugly Duckling Series

When we are different, when we don't fit, we are meant to journey until we find our own, until we find what we belong to. This exile isn't meant to be tortuous, but rather strengthening, like pounding metal to make it stronger. The symbol in the center of the painting is called squaring the circle. As an insolvable task, it represents striving for reconciliation of the symbolic content of the circle and the square.