The Pendulum Creative Process

My creative practice swings like a pendulum between two essential states — and I rarely occupy both at once. Instead, my life moves in deliberate switches: from the sharp, clear evidence of the photograph to the heavy, abstract echo of the painting. This is not restlessness. It is process.

The External: Photography

I spend periods of time deeply immersed in the world through a lens. Using a variety of digital cameras over the years and a rotation of analog tools — the Nikon FM, Yashica D, and Canonet 28 — I document light, architecture, and the texture of daily life, both close to home in Eugene and across the places I've traveled. This is my time of pure observation: capturing the evidence of the "now" before it shifts and disappears.

The Internal: Paintings

Then the focus shifts entirely. I retreat from the lens to the canvas, entering a cycle of intense, abstract work. Painting with oils and acrylics, I translate what the external world has left in me — its atmospheric weight, its undercurrents, its unresolved tensions — into physical form. These pieces are not depictions of events. They are characterized by a palette of crimson, deep purple, and earth tones, and they deal in what observation alone cannot capture. They are the residue that remains.