My paintings are improvisations: chance and risk tethered only by intention. And my intention is to make interesting paintings full of interesting choices. There are themes and motifs I return to again and again—the horizon, clouds, unidentified flying objects—but they emerge always from improvisation and intuition; I make no sketches or studies. In this way, I sustain freedom in my work. This is vital to success in painting.

I think about the possibility of a god, the pedestrian troubles of the day, global and endless war, love, loss, hope, fear, the rental market, human behavior in general, all the time. My work results from trying to keep my short attention span distracted from all of that, if only for seconds at a time, to focus on the physical act of painting. In this, I am continually tested and vexed. Each day I return to work is a triumph. Though I often declare a painting to be “finished,” painting exists in a continuum. Ultimately, I arrest the image, colors, shapes, and textures humbly as a “state.”