Since the Renaissance artists have visually described deep space by defining a horizon line and then establishing vanishing points relative to that line.  A vanishing point is that place where parallel lines seem to converge and then disappear altogether.  In my work the title, Vanishing Points, refers to this visual strategy - both directly and indirectly - to visual elements receding in space, and also their disappearance over time.  In doing so, this work forges a relationship between histories (personal, cultural, and natural) and this visual phenomenon.  As I visit, and re-visit certain locales I am compelled to consider the transience of experience - whether I am in what appears to

Begun in 1998, the photographs that comprise Vanishing Points set themselves apart from other ongoing projects through their miniature scale, lack of physical constructive elements and monochromatic palette. Stylistically these photographs were the most purely 'photographic' works in my collection at the time, although many individual pieces in this series incorporate modified textual elements composed on portions of the image.  These silver gelatin film-based photographs are printed to approx. 2.75” X 3.75”, are sepia toned and marked upon with graphite and erasure. They are presented in an 8” X 10” 8-ply bevel mat.

This series is a systems-based response to the land, a group of work that began in 1990. Through deconstruction of the landscape image I attempt to reconstruct it meaning(s), redefine its parts and reevaluate the relationship between the minute and the universal.  Imagery based in the natural world is imagery of a living system  - in true systems theory all parts of a system have equal value. This work attempts, within the context of landscape photography, to acknowledge that a landscape is indeed an image of a system, and as such is made up of details, each a carrier of meaning.
 The nature of this body of work, as is true for much of my creative work, is that it is heavily interdisciplinary and intermedia. Through the mixed media collage form of Field Studies I draw upon a wide range disciplines to provide meaningful connections to the land, tyig in concerns of the scientific, social and humanistic communities. Images rooted in notions of 'landscape' are layered with references to geology, biology, botany, geography, anthropology, history, literature, as well as personal observations and experiences.

My creative practice is founded upon extended time 'in the field'.  In 1990, while on sabbatical I spent 162 nights outside.   I began to notice things I never had before: the rising of the moon 52 minutes later each night; the succession of plants growing throughout one season; the evaporation of water in deep potholes over the course of a summer; the lush re-growth of under-story vegetation shortly after a wildfire seemingly claimed every living thing; the presence of ancient beaches and sea shores on the buttes; and the stratified and folded mountains revealing the manner in which they were formed so long ago.  The work in which I began to explore these various manifestations of time in place is the series titled Fragments. These are one-of-a-kind large-scale collages and each one is a composite of multiple photographic negatives and prints. The finished artwork is bas-relief and most include some combination of graphite drawing, text transfers, and selective color from gouache or oil pigments.  The portrayal of time may be geological, historical, seasonal, or instantaneous - speaking to the evanescent progression of one moment of sight, or insight, to the next and the ever-changing properties of place.