paintings over the years i have moved back and forth between painting on canvas and painting on paper. the size of my paintings often reflects the size of my studio, with a few exceptions along the way. i moved from oil to acrylic once my paintings were too slow to dry for my working methods. i am more at ease with the speed and versatility of acrylic paint. these days i primarily paint on paper, all forms of paper. i like how thin, fragile paper nearly falls apart when wet. how thick, heavy paper retains the indention of a drawn line. i build the paintings up in layers and washes, hoping each layer shows in the end. i think of the paintings as skin. this is what i see, this is who i am. i used to paint figuratively, but that was years ago. now i feel most comfortable without thematic limitations, although abstraction is a fire i stay close to. often my paintings include text. sometimes the text comes before painting / printing -- other times during the working process. i feel for placementÐ how the words sound with color. sometimes the words are typed or legibly written, other times the words become marks, creating a pattern of language. before any visual expression, i worked with words. painting came later, at the end of college, just by chance. when words started to become part of paintings, they were in german -- that was the language i dreamed in. for awhile i stopped painting to write short stories and poetry. a residency as a writer brought me back to painting again. now i no longer make a distinction between my verbal and visual expression -- except i dream in english.