Painting with dots is my style, my voice, as an artist. Dots relate so much about how I relate to the world around me which, like my art, involves a self-taught approach. My work is reminiscent of pointillism but I wonder how close to this it really is.

Georges Seurat and his followers brought the world pointillism over a century ago. Little points of color, placed side-by-side, to fill defined spaces and using colors, like blue and yellow, placed side-by-side to cause the viewer's perceptions to see green are much of what we think about when pointillism is mentioned. Surat spent enormous time on each work.

By contrast, my paintings take thirty to forty hours, depending on size, although the small canvas such as 8" x 10" will be proportionately less. I paint to feel my senses and emotions flow so spending a literal millennium on a piece would not satisfy my innate needs. The dots I place on the canvas will be any where from about one eight inch, or two millimeters, to the size of an average fingernail. I layer these dots and during the process some dots succumb to burial as no dot is sacred in the process. The dots also go beyond any defining border; in fact there are no drawn lines in my work. I start a painting with a single dot and flow from there as I find the sensitivity and feeling of the piece. There is communication occurring, while I paint, between myself, the colors and the dots and ultimately it is the painting that decides where the dot will go.

Growing up with access to creeks, woods and creatures encouraged me to observe and explore the natural environment. This was the same self-teaching process to things that I've maintained all my life. My understanding about the world I live in is based on the foundation thought that while there is a divinely sourced created element involved with all individual things, nothing exists on its own: trees, air, vehicles, stones, berries, squirrels, buildings, people, insects, whatever we can think of, all mingle at some level with each other. There is an incredible energy involved with these relationships and this is the primary conceptual source of my work.

"Dots" as my approach to painting, for my sense of understanding and interpretation, communicate relationships and energy, so when I paint this mosaic image of layered dots is the result. I use acrylic paint and mix all the colors from primary red, blue and yellow. My palette is quite limited. I use white as well and very little black. A tube of black will be in my painting kit for a couple of years. The acrylic paint dries quickly and generally allows me to work as continuously as I like.

I have a painting I did a number of years ago that is untitled. I think of it simply as 'transition' as at one time my approach to painting was with oils and quite traditional. 'Transition" is the painting that helped me find my voice as an artist. It is the painting that brought me clarity in understanding concepts about my physical world and beyond. And, it is the painting that caused me to paint with dots the way I do.

For me, it is a celebration, and a gift, to paint the way that I paint. Every painting is a meditation: a building becomes the air and the air becomes the building, a portrait has no lines, the prairie, mountains and sky are one.