My painting process is energized and transformed by study of the natural world. Exploring new ecosystems in uncommon environments is valuable visual and conceptual research. In the past three years I have had the opportunity to travel north to the Great Lakes of Superior and Michigan, the Upper Peninsula, Northern Wisconsin and the north shore of Minnesota. The landscape was exotic to me with its many rivers, bogs, preserves, fens, falls and lakes. These diverse waterways have been a large source of inspiration for my most recent work. The driftless landscapes, endless floating spaces, waterfalls with phosphorescent mists have entered my paintings and have become metaphors for our current pandemic era. The knotted, painted combinations force a continual shift of attention among the many levels. I compare this to a single moment in landscape and the competing levels of activity. It's the density of this kind of experience that continues to raise questions and excite me as a painter.