I experiment with materials and processes as a method of sorting out the chaos around me.  Drawing is much like journaling for me, except that the narrative only becomes obvious to me when I reflect upon the work. The layers that are added to my drawings are similar to the layers of my own daily and life experience.  I’m certain that many of my immediate surroundings affect everything I make, and certainly the colors I am drawn to.  San Francisco provides the perfect balance of structure vs nature, and the eye candy is never in shortage.  Instinctively my eyes are drawn to wires, bark, leaf patterns and spider webs.  My ears are full of my children’s voices discovering the world around them, in many ways, for the first time. Their voices point out rocks, dirt, sticks and car wheels - things I hadn’t really noticed before.  Often times I bribe my kids to paint with me so that I can borrow from their palette of color and engage in strange and curious conversation to release my own seriousness about what I’m doing - a vast difference from my usual studio practice, which is undisturbed silence.  I do what I can, when I can and try to not keep too much of my studio life a secret from my kids.  They’re fascinated by color and materials - and how to mix as many things together as possible.  I don’t know where they get it, but it adds new experience every time.  Working with them has opened my mind to my own inhibitions and fears, to that which is unknown and what is least important.  I suppose in some ways art making for me is like a collaboration with my kids as much as it is with the materials themselves.