Fantasy on Le Sylphide Print

Born in Santa Barbara, California, I have been a captive of the magic of ballet from a young age, and fascinated by skies and clouds. Both of these themes dominate my work. My ballet work evokes the fantasy world of the ballet stage, through my own poetic interpretations of the great ballets, such as the Nutcracker, Swan Lake, La Sylphide, and Giselle. The works are not meant to literally depict dancers and the ballet from a realist perspective, a la Degas, but rather from an imaginary viewpoint, as if one were in a romantic landscape of the mind, populated by swan ballerinas, clowns, and butterflies. In these densely painted works, layers of opaque paint are overlaid with other layers of transparent paint or glazes, in the manner of the Old Masters, creating a dense inner glow, a poetic atmosphere that communicates to the viewer the emotion of the dance. On the landscape: In my landscapes I enter a state of quiet meditation upon the light and clouds, and hope that they have the same effect on the viewer. I try to recreate from memory the emotional state that I experienced when in a particular place and at a particular time of day, especially late afternoon or sunset, a time of reflection when I think upon the end of the day and the end of life, the shortness of life