“…that part of the country is, within itself, as unpoetical as any spot on the earth. Seeing it and its objects and inhabitants aroused feelings in me which were certainly poetry; though whether my expression of those feelings is poetry is quite another question.”

--Abraham Lincoln


Poetic language is composed in a similar fashion to how a painter orchestrates brushstrokes of color—one shape next to another. Each painted stroke, like a word in a stanza, is predicated on those around it in order to compose the image and construct meaning.Just as in poetry, painting allows for the literal to be replaced with the abstract in order to give the viewer new insight. Painting, whether literal or abstract, is my way of capturing the quiet subtlety of commonplace scenery.

My work is dependent upon my preoccupation with looking. I find my eye drawn to environmental nuances that can be perceived in terms of shape and color relationships. The subdued palette and natural geometry of rural Illinois allow me to daydream in flatness: fields, roads, sidewalks and buildings rest below the sky in an amalgamation of shapes, colors and textures. By looking at my environment in this way, painting serves my attempts to transform my unmajestic home into scenes worthy of the word “poetic.”