“Still life painting gives me an opportunity to concentrate solely on the abstract beauty of form, color and texture. Here, the narrative elements that might be part any figurative work need not apply. Rather than have a lot of different objects involved, I tend to focus my still life subjects on just one or two kinds of objects for the sake of simplicity and unity of effect. The hats series for instance began purely as an exercise in form and color design using one type of object, hats. The challenge then becomes in pulling out as much interest, invention and beauty that I can from what is really a very ordinary thing.”