This collection of images has deep roots in my love of music, photography, and art. It comes from my collection of photos of musicians, started when I was co-founder of the North Shore Jazz Project and had the opportunity to hear a lot of jazz and meet a lot of the players. I learned how much music moved me, and being an artist, I yearned to somehow interpret those feelings visually, since I was unable to do it musically.

The process starts by finding images from my archive or shooting new ones. I combine them in Photoshop with other unrelated photos of shapes and colors. Sometimes these images come from nature, using flocks of birds taking flight. After compositing, many of these new images then find their way into Illustrator for simplification, or Fresco, on my iPad, where I paint into them with a stylus.

As I work, my images are informed by my background as a painter, and I consider the works of my favorite artists: David Hockney, Henri Rousseau, Gustav Klimpt, and Edward Hopper, that employ strong compositions, often with large areas of flat color, balanced with pattern and smaller shapes.