statement

[W]ayfarer, there is no road, the road is made by walking.
Antonio Machado, "Proverbs and Songs 29"

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

Theodore Roethke, "The Waking"

As a child, I was always afraid of making the wrong decision. Selecting from many possible options was torture unless I could find a convincing rationale for my choice, some external justification beyond my own desire. Fear made me superstitious. I enlisted numerology, mythology, arcane patterns of all sorts to confirm the "rightness" of my decisions.

This body of work confronts decision-making head on. Still craving a system, I borrow one from nature: Plateau's laws, which govern the branching and growth of many natural forms. Within that system, I improvise, lighting out for the territory without a map. Each drawing grows by slow accretion as I allow myself (or force myself) to make hundreds of tiny sequential decisions.

Working at the micro level, I have no idea of the macro consequences until I step back from the piece. Even then, because I work in ink, I can only move forward, building on what I have already laid down. There's no turning back. The tiny decisions are irreversible, like scars and other indices of the unidirectionality of our lives. In this way, making the work is like life: a series of incremental choices whose full import we may not know for years.

There is no road: we make the road by walking, and learn by going where to go.

bio

born: 1960, New York, New York

education

New York University, M.A., 1986
Harvard University, A.B., 1981

selected awards/honors

Curate NYC: Selected for by curator Florence Neal, 2013
Curate NYC: Selected by curator Mahnaz Fancy, 2013
Curate NYC: Selected by curator Lauren Ross, 2013

selected publications

New York Times, "Islip Exhibition Explores How Science Influences Art," October 25, 2015
The Artist Catalogue (interview and back cover art), Fall 2014
365Artists365Days blog, 2014

selected solo or two-person exhibits

AVA Gallery, Solo Show, Lebanon, New Hampshire, 2015
University of Connecticut, Solo Show, Groton, Conneticut, 2015
Lane Community College, Geometry of Hope, Eugene, Oregon, 2014
ArtSpaceNC, Trajectories (with Orna Feinstein), Raleigh, North Carolina, 2014

selected group shows

Islip Art Museum, Compendium, East Islip, New York, 2015
Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Marking Wonderland, Larchmont, New York, 2015
Lyons Wier Gallery, Unilimited Potential, New York, New York, 2015
Hammond Museum, Visions Revealed, North Salem, New York, 2014