I grew up drinking in Maui's colors.  As soon as I could drive I started out on Maui's roads with my easel, painting en plein air, and today, these colors still nourish me.

The works painted on sight are expressions of the very energy of a place, a home that surrounds us, this island. There still are places where if you stop for a moment and pay attention you can take in more than an awesome view. There is a feeling, something inside that resonates, that says this place is special. And it's all around us. The art I create is my way to experience that, and to create my expression of the colors, the light, as it came through during that extended moment I stood there, breathless, holding my brush to a canvas.

The images I paint of Old Hawaii are a remembering of how people have lived with their surroundings, on the very soil we now stand on. The sense of nostalgia is strong in Hawaii, and it's directly proportionate to the sense of plenty that once permeated. Still, today, there are those who value and guard those ways, just as others work to protect the native habitat. Not only is there a beauty to these old ways, but a sense of connectedness. Everything you need is at hand. I paint these images, not to simply record what once was, but to put forth a sense of timelessness. The ocean roars on the beach, the rains still wash through the upland forests—what has changed is how we relate to, and live alongside these things. But when this happens, the living culture, this I love to paint the most.