Artists Statement
I started painting with a needle tool just under two years ago when I bought oil paint, on a whim, from a homeless lady on Houston and First Avenue. The last time I had taken an art class was in high school 15 years earlier and my experience wasn’t good. But I bought the paint because I thought it would be fun to try. After I tried it, I stuck with it because the colors are the most beautiful to me.
I paint with a needle because it allows me to express what writing, improv, stand-up and even photography cannot, my ideas in the most detailed way.
I used to see my ideas in writings and words, but that changed when I took up photography. it was photography that helped me learn to speak to myself in image as opposed to writings and words.
I love using the needle tool because in order to do so, I need to place my face right up to the canvas. This means that even if I’m working on a piece that is as small as eight inches by ten inches, I become enveloped by the piece and I get to live inside it for a few hours each day.
Using the needle tool is also soothing for me. The combination of being enveloped by my creation and staring at a quick moving needle tool puts me into a trance every time.
There is nothing I like more than creating pictures with super small details, like far away clouds or fires on mountains in the distance. A lot of the time I try and make it so you can only ‘kind of’ see things, even if you are standing up close.
I like to think that standing five feet away from my work has the same effect as standing 20 feet away from other artists paintings.
