My early paintings reflect a period in my life of dark introspection. In my dreams, creatures of all sorts struggled in a primordial morass, and my efforts to save them -- and myself -- were futile.

In early 1989 1 had a dream where I rode up out of the earth and onto a high, dry plain on a horse, literally feeling myself come "Into My Power." Six months later, my dream came true. My first horses, Raf and Strider, entered my life. Through this new, large, physical reality I broke through many barriers within myself.

Part of my experience of that dream landscape was seeing the shadow that the horse and I cast upon the earth. Embracing the darkness of my psyche, my shadow side, and the secrets that it holds is part of my working process. The layering of the fields of jewel-like colors is a ritual honoring this process of knowing myself.