Over the past year I've devoted much of my painting efforts in developing my own style. I'm now working almost exclusively in abstracts. My goal is to apply my training in form, composition, perspective, light, color and technique to create paintings that express less specifically what I see and more of what I "feel". The challenge for me is to capture an emotion, sense or experience, and then distill it into shapes and colors that reflect the place, space, event or encounter. Though this is difficult in some aspects it is also freeing in many others. As my wonderful teacher, Bonny Leibowitz reminds me, "It's okay to break the rules as long as you know and understand them." The feedback I've been getting about my new work is very exciting – though I'll admit that once in a while someone who likes my more realistic pieces will say they "Just don't get it" and they don't know why I want to change.

The only answer I can give is that my work is growing, as I hope I am.