The primary goal in my art is the creation of texture. A textured surface is capable of shadow and light. It draws attention to the surface and adds the flavor of randomness, and the deterioration of matter with time's passage.

Next is the effect of texture on color. If a work is abstract then the variations in the texture add to the interest of color. Color has highlights and shadows due entirely to the element of texture. However, it is usually a serious distraction to a painting that is primarily "about something." It would be difficult to ask the viewer to be enchanted by the surface of the "painting" and at the same time to be moved by a discernable subject, such as that of a landscape or a portrait.

There is an exception, and that is when the texture is intended to render to the subject an illusion of antiquity. The distressed surface of a fresco, to me, has the added beauty of the dimension of time.

A well trained artist has a technical facility to render realistic portrait that conveys a sense of the psychological state of mind of the subject. I am thinking of Ingress. He embodies perfection of technique. Likewise, many well trained contemporary artists paint with a control and a skill that is as aesthetically perfect as that of the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Other artists, for a variety of reasons, forgo this type of skill and go after a different kind of aesthetics. I would call it the aesthetics of the wilder side of the "soul." I would put myself in this category because of my limitations in time and ability.

Medicine is my primary concern and I would not change that. Yet, art rounds out the other side of life, that of joy, invention and passion.