These paintings began with the surfaces.

Layers of burnt orange, ochre, turquoise, black and chalky white reminded me of old metal—weathered, oxidized and transformed by time. I’ve always been drawn to these distressed surfaces: peeling paint, corroded steel, the unexpected colors and textures that emerge as something ages.

There is something about finding the beauty in distress that speaks to me more and more as I get older. This led me, inevitably, to Rust Never Sleeps and the timeless music and poetry of Neil Young

Young’s music has been part of the soundtrack of my life since I was a teenager—a time filled with angst, lots of weed, and an earnest attempt to figure things out. I was trying to make sense of a dysfunctional family. Trying to understand how to be a good person in the world. How to love without drama. How to build a life that felt productive, happy and my own.

All these years later, those three words—rust never sleeps—mean something different to me.

Time is always working on us. We age. We weather. We accumulate scars and layers. Parts of us fade while other things become more vivid. We are continually becoming something different from what we once were.

And there is beauty in this too.

Like the patina on an old piece of metal, the evidence of time and experience becomes part of what makes us interesting and beautiful.

Rust Never Sleeps I, II & III are about finding the beauty in distress—in surfaces, in aging, and in the ways we are changed by living.