I've been a poet for as far back as I can remember, but what artist hasn't? Whether one starts by drawing, taking pictures, playing music or dancing—it all contains the element of the visual.
Whichever mode of expression one prefers, representational, narrative or abstract, it all comes from the same place and with the desire to make it concrete.
For me it’s naturally been a lean toward the abstract containing a narrative. That is most true in my paintings. My poetic has always been conscious of musicality through repetition and relationship to word, rhythm and cadence. Big Day, New and Selected Poems, Elik Press 2020 is my book showing much of what I’m talking about here.
For many years, my photography style held to the abstraction of the physical, natural and man-made. I was, and still do try to move photography closer to the painting. The same goes for my 16mm film making through collage and superimposition.
Most recently my vision has been representation heavily collaged with plenty of narrative possibility. In this way, through repetition, I hope to twist the viewer’s perception enough to challenge what one first thinks one sees. Traditional collage moves in fantasy, while I’m trying to keep feet closer to ground.
So here's the rundown: Poetry, publishing zines and books, reading poetry, and my two teaching assistantships at the Naropa Institute. One with Allen Ginsberg and the poet Gregory Corso, Wm. S. Burroughs and others from the Beat and Post-Beat: New York Poet Anne Waldman, as well as Anselm Hollo, Jack Collom and other beat and non-beat poets and writers: Jim Jones and Andy Hoffmann, Fielding Dawson and so many others. The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics (1985—88).
Through experimental film making (1997 to present) in Seattle and the co-founding of SUFF, Seattle Underground Film Festival with Jon Behrens (1999-2003), I built a foundation for things in motion.
In the case of my films there is no dialogue but the narrative is carried further by the constructed soundtrack. The sound becomes the language that fills out what the image might have left unsaid.
Because of this, motion becomes conscious in my two-dimensional work. A narrative containing motion, humor, a poetic, with a nod to location. I think this is what you can see in many of the images on this site.
