My training as a painter began during the time that I was working toward an MFA at the University of California at Los Angeles, studying under instructors who were still reacting against the "confines" of academia. During my graduate years, I studied under Richard Diebenkorn, whose contributions, ironically, are just now coming to light, following the years of my own academic study. I've returned to those very large brushes and expansive strokes to block in a painting. This enables me to concentrate on obtaining a sense of expressive movement in a composition.
As my studies at the university concluded, I felt an aesthetic restlessness to explore other possibilities. The Los Angeles art scene at that time was still exalting itself amidst a vast arena of open spaces and a freedom to quest after an "originality," that ultimately became a sterile intellectual visual game.
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