I am using the natural force of gravity and fluid dynamics to draw with a liquid-based graphite mixture. My use of graphite speaks to both the arts and the sciences—it simultaneously references the artistic practice of drawing, the carbon base of life forms, and vast geologic processes.

The final imagery is not predetermined, but develops within parameters I set in place as I begin painting. Once the graphite mixture dries, I may incise scientifically based but ultimately manufactured diagrams into it, flattening the image into a schematic charting.

The creation of the graphite ground is an exercise in giving up control, letting nature take its course. My initial restrictions and subsequent markings allude to human efforts to understand, classify, and mentally subdue acts of nature.

I make this work because I am intrigued by the play between the loose, organic line and the tight, architectonic line; the natural world and the intellectualized account of the natural world; the fact and the symbol for the fact; and the life of the body and the life of the mind.