I began painting 40 years ago by moving paint around. Distance and my projection being the method of creating. No technique. Work close. Stand back and look. Repeat until something emerges. Then expand. The light and distance from which I observed the result would change my perception until something emerges capturing my projection. Then I would work the emergent part until it expanded and perhaps a painting would come into being. Or it would just be a mess. I can call this purposely accidental until a detail would connect with me and then be deliberately manipulated into a whole.

Interestingly if we do something long enough we're always surprised at the result. And so I played around with this style of painting until I developed my own technique to dig into my own emergent style of painting. Not trained and not influenced by formal technique rather my own native and primitive process. The emergent piece is what fascinates my psychological trained mind . Now it is no longer as accidental as it was; rather I can create a vision and move dynamically towards this purpose. Still, within each painting something accidental emerges and captures my projection. This emergent aspect provides the inspiration and fascination behind my motivation to paint. I have thought of this technique as Projective Dynamism.

My paintings are not inspired by the work of visual artists; rather it is the realm of psychology that inspires both method and (manifest) content.  I am greatly indebted to the work of the great theorist, Carl Jung, as well as two psychologists, James Hillman and Wolfgang Giegerich, who used Jung's ideas as a springboard for their own inspired work. Jung developed the theory of archetypes of the collective unconscious and James Hillman expounded upon this work into more dynamic archetypical realm. So just how do we manifest this realm into something tangible (yet never static). It continually needs expressive projection and manifestation, more than technique and planning. It needs discovery and then grounding into specific image (the painting). Giegerich wrote about Soul as manifestations and as needing a particular set of conditions to exist as to allow the manifestation (Soul) to continue. A creation (perhaps a painting) and an audience touched by something that stirs within them. So I paint and perhaps sometimes I'm able to bring something outer worldly, yet very human, into being. It has to surprise and never grow static. I feel like I am in a continual dance between my projection and the image coming back at me. If my dance is able to captivate another viewer; then perhaps I was able to reach into something of our shared ancestry.