Water, Light & Memory

How It Started

The paintings you may know as Water, Light & Memory started with a moment I almost let slip away.

It began at the doctor’s office. I was waiting in the exam room.

I wasn't feeling well that day, which may be exactly why the painting on the wall stopped me cold. It was flowing — truly flowing — paint moving across a surface with a kind of fluid intelligence I hadn't seen before. I sat with it for a while, the way you can only sit with something when the rest of your life has temporarily gone quiet.

I didn't photograph it. I didn't even think to.

But the painting stayed with me. For three weeks it lived somewhere in the back of my mind, surfacing at odd moments. Finally, I did what any reasonable person would do: I drove back to that doctor's office at ten minutes to closing and asked if I could photograph it. The receptionist, to her credit, said yes.

From there it was research, then experimentation, then Yupo paper — and once I discovered Yupo, there was really no going back. The series follows…