"I like to work with pastels in a lyrical, minimalist style using a very limited palette. I believe that such art can possess strong transformative powers. I am convinced that it is the artist as shaman, trickster and prophet who can evoke such powers.”
"Inspired by Thoreau and Zen philosophy, I live a self-sustaining life of voluntary simplicity surrounded by a natural world of trees, chickadees, rabbits, squirrels, deer, etc. This style of living also excludes the electrical grid.
Under the tutelage of a figurative artist and friend, I became interested in drawing the human figure. I was attracted to the emotional depth that the figurative artist can capture in such paintings. I found that I had a natural ability to create facial expressions and gestures that revealed genuine feelings. This is unlike contemporary art where I see the figure as usually rendered cold, aggressive, or completely emotionless. In other words, the perfect rendering of a patriarchal society. On the other hand, I like to draw a figure that probes the depth of the human psyche. Like Vermeer and Rembrandt, I like to capture that moment when the subject is silent, in deep thought with inner psychological feelings that are implied but hidden.
At the turn into the 21st century my life also took a turn. It happened after reading a book by Layne Redmond entitled ‘When The Drummers Were Women.’ This book made me realize for the first time that in Paleolithic/Neolithic times modern anthropologists have confirmed that much of the world in the Near East and Europe was once dominated by a highly functional matrifocal culture of human beings like you and me. Because of my background as a history major, it was a revelation to realize that our present patriarchal culture couldn’t be presumed to be the natural order of human society. With this understanding, I had to acknowledge as a man enjoying the benefits of a privileged gender that it is totally indefensible to think of or treat women as inferior.
All art I created since then and the accompanying website, IsisRising.net, is an outgrowth of that realization.”
