Paint helps me explore ideas and visual sensations inaccessible in three dimensions. When I paint I begin with an idea that is somewhat vague. I like to work on a series of canvasses at one time. In this series of paintings, Vessels of the Spirit, I wanted to create a body of work focusing on the same visual elements as I was using in my sculptures, vases and the human figure. I wanted to associate the body with the vase to show that it is the vessel of the spirit. But I didn't know how I would do it. I really hadn't painted much for ten years. How to start? What to do?

I knew I didn't want to paint the way I see in the external world. I wanted to paint what I see in my mind, how I recall things, how I feel them. I love texture. The texture of my bronzes contains an enormous amount of information. I wanted to create a series of works where the texture of the painted surface was very important. For instance, the late paintings by Rembrandt and Monet have a lot of texture and are among my favorites. But I didn't know what images I was going to paint. I needed a random texture, like old walls. So I built a series of canvasses and covered them with gesso crammed with additives to make the paint thicker. Then I needed to add color.

Once again I turned to my bronzes. I chose the colors of the oxidized metal. Siennas, ochers, greens, blues, golds, and indian red. I scrubbed and scumbled with this palatte until I had a series of very pleasing of sites on which to paint. Then I did what I love to do. I stared at the ambiguous surfaces of the canvasses until my mind shut down and the imagery appeared. I rejected all images that had nothing to do with my theme. When my mind coordinated random points into intelligible shapes, I traced them. This was simple to do because they were right there.

I wanted the images to have the partially transparent, luminous quality that dreams and memories have. Some are vague - as though seen through a veil or as though they were only shadows, some are ambiguous - as though you can't quite determine what you're seeing, yet others are more clear and defined.

Here, from the back of my mind and the bottom of my heart, are a series of painting I started in 1997, called Vessles of the Spirit.