Statement

The higest aspiration of Art is to find ways to depict and express the Greatness within each one of us. And the hope of every artist is to produce works of Greatness...works which will move the viewer...works which will raise Ma's image of himself. Yet it seems statements of such significance can never be deliberately achieved but rather must evolve from a strong inner urge to visualize and communicate "something"...and late on figure out what it is.

My search for ways to make a visual statement of some significance in the monoprint led, I realized later, to a symbolic expression of the meaning of being Human and of the dichotomy of the Conscious/Subconscious Mind. My patterns of flowing movement, developed intuitively, are reflective of my conviction that it is the subconscious which keeps us in tune with the Life Force of the Universe so evident in Nature's patterns of movement and energy. Geometric line and shape, brought into the statement to harness the organic movement into a composition, are also symbols of thought and thus express my awareness that the big difference between Man and all other creatures on earth is the Conscious Mind. Only Man can make the considered mark or take the considered action. And only Man tries to structure his Universe!

Although I agree with Jung that symbols are not true symbols unless they emerge unawares, I find that once they have surfaced naturally in the course of a search for a way to express deeply felt concepts through visual imagery, they do become an important part of the artist's visual vocabulary. The "sense of rightness" of the symbol is then conducive to discovery of additional meanings in that symbol and/or the emergence of other symbols or equal or even deeper significance.