For the past few years, I have been making abstract paintings that I build by layering hand-drawn patterns within the boundaries of the canvas. The imperfections that result from handmade patterns and geometric forms often heighten their optical effects and make the viewer aware of the experience of looking. In these images I want to convey at once a sense of ambiguity, purposefulness, and humor. At times they have a sense of openness on one hand and resistance on the other: I am interested in what happens in the middle. Meaning comes through determined imprecision, broken or sagging structures, and the obviousness of the hand that created the painting. The surface, scale, and optical qualities subvert, or sustain, a sense of balance for viewers, underscoring their physical relationship with the work.