"It all goes back to drawing.  That contact with the pencil on the paper, the freedom, the immediacy, the working out of ideas, the play of tones, the variety of mark-making.  It was the first contact I had with art, the way I sketched out my sculptures, initially, and now is the springboard for my mixed media works on paper. 

But drawing on pristine, quality archival paper can be intimidating, at least until you learn to love your smudges, erasures, accidents, etc. I have another way around the challenge of the blank page. My initial sketch becomes the first layer in the multiple steps of my drawings, using the magic of the printing press to transfer the images to the paper.  This drawing becomes the beginning of something, instead of the end of something. Although I do sometimes make drypoint transfers and etching transfers, most of my work happens after this image is on the paper.  There is more layering with the press, for tone and color, but mostly I work directly on the drawing, using colored crayons and pencils, gauche, xeroxes, charcoal, and various other pencils.