I have always felt most strongly attracted to art in which the spiritual and abstract dimensions reign. Italian icons and paintings of the l3th to l5th Centuries--some of my favorites are the works of the Sienese--convey revelatory truths, a radiant and sometimes visionary quality.

My rendering of the human face and form has been inspired by icons from the Russian Orthodox tradition. Through viewing these works I gradually realized the fundamental importance placed on the artist's entering into the spirit and meaning of the image to be rendered. This means that the artist must be mentally and spiritually prepared with insight honed through experience.

Persian miniature painting and calligraphy greatly move me, both with their incredible intensity of color--used abstractly to establish and enhance rhythmic patterning--and a sophisticated use of geometry which, in harmony with the color, establishes visual unity of intricate complexity. Incidentally, the Golden Ratio can be found in some examples of this art, particularly in tiling patterns.

Landscape painting holds immense appeal for me. Chinese works of the Sung Dynasty convey close to the ultimate in subtlety and sublimity. The life force seems embodied in each brush stroke.

Artists such as Leonardo, Vermeer and Seurat all in their own way express a certain indefinable essence of reality. Leonardo's "Virgin of the Rocks" and other works capture a poetic element important to me: a remote setting far-removed from towns and cities where a mythic realm can flower. Some of his small drawings beautifully capture the apocalyptic and untamed aspects of nature which I find so powerfully present in the North Country. Seurat, in addition to the subtly oscillating light of his works, appeals to my love of geometry as a basis for pictorial construction. Although Vermeer did not create any "pure" landscapes--the closest would probably be the "View of Delft"--his rendering or evocation of light and atmosphere also touches upon that indefinable "essence" present in all the above-mentioned art.

Ultimately, the most important artistic factor is what is visually conceived and seen, whether a river, rocks or sky, a rectangle or polygon, and the awareness and insight brought to the process.