Cairn 9

I am a mixed media non-representational abstract painter. I’m inspired by looking at broken asphalt roads, pushed ice sheets in the bay, lichens on old trees, mangled flattened soda cans and the unintended compositions created.

I start all my paintings with intuitive marks and gestures, then the layering of colors, creating textures; scraping away adding marks, subtracting and reconstructing, then repeating. In this process I will chose clashing colors, change the composition and will break all the rules. First comes the chaos, then some order and clarity.

I want the viewer to constantly discover new elements and details in my paintings, and bring their own interpretations and reactions to my thousands and thousands of actions. 

You’ll find charcoal, graphite, gunpowder, sand, crayons, oil stick, oil and cold wax, even photography within and on paper and canvas, primed and un-primed, sandwiched on to wood panels.

I live and work on a very small Island in Lake Superior, Madeline. I spent my first three decades creating photographic advertising images. I plan to spend my last decades creating soul driven images. The act of painting, creating, is as essential to me as air and water.