While influenced by the Romantics and the Impressionists of Eastern Europe, I work primarily from life and film photography that I shoot on my Nikon FG. Film photography gives me a more intimate and intentional way to produce reference materials when I cannot paint directly from life. In these oil paintings, I find myself striving to participate in the history and tradition of oil painting as a whole. This is about the value of the object, and that object’s place in the lineage of a shared tradition.