Collage has been a huge part of my artistic expression since the early 1970's. The ones shown on this page are the most recent and combine a far more abstract vision in addition to using words.

Discovering color photography was a whole new world after learning all the intricate nuances of black and white. Color transparencies was all that anyone really did except for those doing dye-transfer and cibachrome. . Color transparencies where what was required on all color jobs. I loved the richness of Kodachrome and used it in all the night work series.

These are recent images with more to be added soon,

The Theatre series began in the early 2000’s . I continued shooting and painting theatre interiors along with many other interiors for the next number of years.  Shooting on a tripod again like I had with the night images was so familiar, however, I knew these would eventually be paintings so they only needed to have a certain amount of detail.

The theatre is a stunning, magical and powerful place. The dynamic collegial atmosphere with actors, director, lighting, music and more is a language of its own. But alone, it becomes a solitary study of the power and nuance of light, color, shadow and red.

In 2007 after painting my photographs in oil pastel for the last 5 plus years, I decided to take it a step further. With photos of  interiors, I began a new series on canvas using acrylic paints. It was a great experience and I loved mixing color with a brush.  In the broader sense It also reinforced a direction I had wanted to take and that was to loosen up and get away from painting inside of line/ boundaries. That didn't happen exactly but it moved me towards a more abstract experience with color.

When my drawing teacher in high school said she was going to be teaching photography after the summer and we had to take the class, I thought sure. I was hooked from the word go. The late 60's was the high contrast era but regardless, the magic that happened in the darkroom kept me coming back for the next 12 years. In college, I spent every spare minute in the library combing over the photo books about every master photographer. My photography professor was a purest. No cropping, no manipulation except for making a print that had a pure black and white and all the grey tones in between. "Find the photo in the viewfinder, 35mm is for street photography and view cameras are for detail".  One day Edward Weston's son came into class and showed us his fathers original prints. He said they cost $300. To me it might as well have been a million, living on $1.50 a day for parking and lunch. I became determined to do what many fine art photographers had done, like Margaret Brouke-White,  Dorothea Lange, Julia Margaret Cameron, Atget Stieglitz, Ansel Adams and so many others had done. Be a commercial photographer to support doing your fine art. It sounded like a good idea.

All the photographs featured here are from 1970's, fashion, portrait, magazine illustration and street photography.

Determined to expand my awareness of photography and it's power, I fell in love with painting. There are so many wonderful painters I had studied that I couldn't help but be influenced. Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, John Singer Sergeant, Van Gogh, Jasper Johns.   I had also grown tired of the almost less than 2 dimensional quality of the photograph along with the continued conversation about how long would they last.... the fading and all. I started making some abstract acrylics and quickly transferred to painting my photographs. The interiors and night shots worked well for these mixed media pieces. I worked on this series for nearly fifteen years.

I began with chalk pastel and transferred to oil wanting to get away from the dust and loving the richness of the color and the new way of mixing it. 

This series evolved over several years. 20 pieces in all. From lots of sweat, anger, you name it.... and with tons of encouragement from the late Herve Innskeep. Initially, I created a series of pieces that were tinged with humor. Herve said " No", go back and begin again. It was no laughing matter. The images had to be true to my feelings and without the cover of humor. I decided to do the series backwards, creating the titles first and then the images. Words had become powerful and since I had been quiet for most of my life, now was no time to follow that old path. The majority of the pieces are 40" x 60", mixed media with collage and painted with chalk pastel. 

I began shooting at night in 1973 and continued through the beginning 80’s. I lived in a storefront in Santa Monica close to the pier. As I walked the neighbor hood in the early evening I knew I had about ten minutes of the best light to find a shot. I was drawn to places that mingled a convergence of different light spectrums. Photographing with daylight transparencies (Kodachrome) I framed each image using exactly what photographers had done 100 years before. Camera mounted on tripod, long exposures and stopped down as much as possible. There was no other way to do it then. I never used any filters. Sometimes shooting into distant lights the aperature would record like a star. It was magical and I could hardly wait to go out and roam around. I could be a kid again. My college professor, Ed Sievers had taught us to feel the photograph and there it was… and still is.