For me, the line's the thing: the heart and guts of my art. My drawing and painting always begin - and frequently end - with line. I often start with making marks haphazardly on the canvas, letting the line develop a life of its own as it pulls me deeper into the work. Repetitions of shapes and lines are the result of my own emotional need to continue marking, drawing. I work exclusively from life, always with new and different models. I don't often know in advance just what will inspire me in a model. Sometimes a reaction to wiry hair or visible teeth or protruding bones will determine the vocabulary for a particular piece. Using the same model too frequently will cause my work to be less spontaneous and more repetitive since I'm responding to the same stimuli.

There are no titles. Unlike artists who may begin with an idea or a title in mind or who might find titles emerging during their working process, labels just never seem appropriate to me. Attaching words when the experience is finished always feels false, as if I'm pasting them on without their really adhering. My work is to be felt rather than read.

Since there are no written guidelines, viewers project themselves into their responses to my work; their reactions seem to augment the creative process. Different people have reacted to the same paintings and drawings in entirely individual ways, from "violent" and "angry" to "humorous" and/or "romantic". This makes me even more reluctant to limit their reactions by giving them esoteric titles to decipher.

My art evolves from the work process itself. Rarely is anything planned or designed. Indeed, the few times I've started with a specific idea the results were static. The best pieces result from those magical times when I work on pure instinct, when consciousness disappears and my brush finds its own way onto the palette and onto the canvas. This is expressionism personified.