Occasionally my work goes back to my childhood where I grew up. The Sunflowers and Nigerian School Girls series (16 paintings in all plus a mural at Pennello’s Bistro, Pickering Village) go back to my times in Peru and Winnipeg. The prairies and field paintings I have done reflect my years growing up in Western Canada,. I am interested in many subjects, all either related to my past or where I am today. The significance of the tree is more where I am today but it goes all the way back to my childhood when I first read the poem “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer: “I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree; A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth’s sweet flowing breast A tree that looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in summer wear a nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; who intimately lives with rain; Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.” Since then, I have traveled through many wooded areas all over North America and visited temperate and tropical rainforests in British Columbia and Puerto Rico. I have seen and documented trees of many species from many places and, yet, I haven’t had to travel far as there are so many impressive trees around me. My work for The Tree Project, is based mainly on trees along Lake Ontario. I continue to lead the viewer on a journey along Lake Ontario to experience the trees I have seen and intend to extend this series to trees from other places. Trees excite me with their glorious presence. They enrich our lives and our environment while establishing an emotional and physical stability. For the exhibition, In Quadratum, my work is from the Ontario landscape, and my years growing up in the prairies. I did 4 major paintings dealing with Ontario fields in the four seasons. I will now take this series further and do a series of fields and other vast spaces I have seen in my travels. Water also plays a large part in the spirit of my work being born near the ocean and living close to a body of water all my life. I have been documenting lighthouses over the past five years for a major series of work dealing with the lights and the surrounding areas. I am also working on two more series ideas dealing with water lilies and marshlands. All my research is done using 35mm, digital, and video cameras. I document all my photographs in albums and I have a TV and VCR in my studio where I review all my video film and photographs before I come up with a composition. The video brings back the sounds and movement in the landscape that is so important in my interpretations. I usually work out a quick sketch of the composition but sometimes I go right to the canvas. I work mainly with oils on canvas, using thin layers of paint, building it up slowly to create glazes of luminosity and moods of serenity which reveal the transition between the visual and spiritual and a feeling of peace. My colours are rich, but quiet.