Art: A Process of Transmutation

Seeing, as the visual artist understands it, is an act of selective observation; it is the attainment of visual literacy. Thinking perceptually manages the means by which the artist identifies and expresses with conviction and clarity a personal inner vision and creative urgings. This unique process of thinking VISUALLY provides the conduit through which paintings, explicitly guided by an honest inner-upswelling of deep-felt personal responses, can effectively and convincingly speak with an inner energy worthy of respect, appreciation and value. This act of transmutation remains a constant mandate in my work; and once adhered to equips me to assimilate and personally evaluate all sensory experience, shape my responses to visual stimuli, and avoid acts of mere narration, the habit of mimicking, or any persuasion to follow the foibles of stylistic consensus.

Watercolor: A Process Not a Product

It’s fluid, free-spirited. It tantalizes, teases, — dares you
 to catch its spirit; ‘catch me if you can’! But soon you
 discover that "...the utmost reward of its daring should
 be still to dare." (Robert Frost). That’s its captivating nature!


It entices, lures, beckons; and encourages exploration,
 experimentation, discovery. Engage.


It’s conversational and invites interactive participation,
 but demands an active role. Like a precocious child,
 young enough to remain innocent, it’s ever playful—playfully evasive—never static, never passive and pleads
 for your part in its play.


It’s the process not the product that’s pivotal to its
 enjoyment. The only cure for a watercolor is another
 watercolor!

Sketching: A Visual Diary

From my earliest years as an art student, on location sketching played a pivotal role in my training; it was never an option. It was expected, required and factored in as a component of my development as an artist.

Apart from taking its rightful place as a legitimate art form valued on its own merits, sketching served as a role indispensable for me in an investigative process of tapping into and exploring vast repositories of visual information; i.e., the character of a tawny-stoned Cotswold village; an Umbrian hamlet, haunting and medieval to the core; of landscapes and seascapes, harborscapes and boat yards, etc.

India: A New Landscape of Visual Images

Whether in Old Delhi, Jaipur or Varanasi (now Benaris) it was there – an unending progression of interacting, shifting, overlapping and interlocking shapes – a kaleidoscope of color images constantly collecting into patterns only to disassemble just as quickly as they had assembled. Positions, directions, intervals shifted and formed new spatial meanings of size, shape, brightness, color and texture. Blurred blobs of yellow, pink or red rhythms – the gentle rhythms of saris – moved with unhurried grace. There were head carried baskets of fruit, batteries of bicycles, carts, camels, and yes, the sacred cow, milk white and never far removed from its counterpart, the ubiquitous kurta and dhoti simultaneously achromatic.

So rich, so diverse, so complex were the constantly fluctuating communities of each hastily changing montage, it became a scramble – a high spirited game – to assimilate and respond to unending and relentless processions of competing relationships. This was a parade of new visual images. I was required to empty my vessel of vision. This
 new landscape of optical units demanded a radical shift. Patterns frozen in a Western norm dissolved, others formed. A new dynamic emerged! – the dissolving of old patterns continues.