I have always maintained that my project as an artist is unified overall, and that the differences between drawing and painting are only "skin deep." That being said, I do approach drawing in a different manner than my paintings. Where my paintings are often densely worked in a large number of layers, the equivalent effort in my drawings is spread through a large number of sheets; in my paintings the work impacts on the surface and my drawings spread the work laterally across a larger surface area. The amount of work is the same, but how that work relates to a viewer looking at a finite exhibition is different. This can give the impression that my paintings are more important than my drawings. I do not see this hierarchy as a top down phenomena, but rather that my paintings emerge from my drawing process. Drawing is a procedure of investigation and each group of drawings represents a specific aspect of that investigation.

My notebooks are a conduit from my thought process to my paintings. They are a kind of brain; they are where I collect and order information, analytic or visual. Ephemera from readings, beginnings of ideas, and visual cues are collected for future use. They are where processing that information starts; small diagram-doodles and notes that have potential are compiled chronologically. Text and writing are equally important to the drawings (sometimes more so: I often detail the my thought process in writing, leading to several pages of text, with no "pictures" to speak of). I reorder, analyze, and experiment with ideas, testing a painting through several variations that ultimately direct the action on the canvas. My notebooks are not sketchbooks. I limit the tools used in them to a pen and white out, and color is always diagramed and explained, never demonstrated. They have the look and feel of notes on a blackboard; they force my investigations into a rational crucible where the outcome the best possible direction of effort.

"The Remaindered Set" functions as a large schematic archive. Originally intended as a replacement for bar napkins and other scraps of paper that I would doodle on and try to save later, I settled on a small sheet size (approximately 6 1/2" x 5") and restricted the materials to the same common supplies (pens, white out, the last of my morning coffee) used in my notebooks. They are the next step up in my process, replacing random doodling. This allows me to both focus my rational investigation in my notebooks and eliminate any editing or expectations with in the drawings. By letting the series continue I can gauge my interests over time by tracking the changes within the continuity. While the series continues to grow (it is now at over 800 sheets) these works are not studies for larger works; in fact early attempts to scale them up into paintings were failures. They function both as fully autonomous works, tuned to their own scale, and as a unified and growing body of information. They are flexible in exhibition. I have exhibited them in large groups on shelving around the gallery where each sheet is its own idea contained within the vast whole. The effect is not unlike a library, where the differing taxonomy of volumes combines to form a grand understanding of where they came from.

The works in the "Theory" series are an investigation into the dividing line between my paintings and drawings. What divides one from the other is not always apparent, and I started by removing the standard support (canvas, paper) in favor of translucent Mylar. The thin plastic sheets effectively removed support (the verso and wall behind being the same as the front) and allowed me to try all possible materials in service of a given idea without fixed preconceptions. Mixed media became the norm but I made an effort to incorporate all my working methods, from the simple pens of my notebooks to full oil paintings. By varying the size of the sheet I was able to play with the scale of the image to it's constituent marks. The translucency allowed me to explore the layering that is central to my mark making process, by working both sides of the sheet, letting corrections sit underneath the surface, yet remain visible. I found that the most successful works were the ones that accepted and embraced the nature of the support, despite its unconventional nature. These were the works that kept the image on either plane of the sheet, with minimal building of material or erasure. Were there was erasures; it became the subject, sitting on the surface (becoming material) and serving as the subject. This seems to point to a new approach to painting and serves to illustrate the value of drawing as an equal endeavor.