There are places in this world today that are so compelling that my response is to record the visual experience -- to draw and paint what I see on the spot. Monumental human-made structures in disrepair are as attractive to me as landscapes in nature. I like my subject matter timeless and contemporary.

As a child in Japan, I was influenced by nature and bombed-out buildings; I used oil pastel and magic markers. When I lived in London, I had ample subject matter in old factories and power stations while I learned printmaking. Etching, especially aquatint, is perfect for conveying the monochromatic tones that suggest industrial pollution. Black-and-white newspaper photographs can be transferred onto the etching plate, creating a blurry, obscured image of recent events. I was obsessed with manipulating my etching plate with biting, scratching, burnishing and painting with nitric acid. Eventually, I simply worked with perfecting the aquatint in a non-representational way.

Returning to California forced me to revisit the landscape as subject matter, which I did by using an etching press to make monotypes. Then I drew over the monotypes with oil pastel and made collages on the prints evoking the ocean, branches of trees, rocks and other natural phenomena. The reference to landscapes propelled me outside to work directly from life. At first, I made pencil sketches and went back to the studio to translate my sketches onto the etching plate. I used an aluminum plate as a backing to spread color with large rollers, printing the color onto newsprint, after which I tore up the paper to spread onto the final plate. The procedure was absorbing, but I craved the spontaneity of working outside more directly from nature, so I abandoned printmaking to focus on painting plein air. Responding to life in the wind and shifting light outside is exhilarating because it's all happening in the moment.

Los Angeles vibrates with transition, and I paint it that way. Freeways swirl around the town, railroads and rivers mark borders and territory. The bridges over the L.A. River are full of history. Bridges interest me as shapes as well as symbols of connection. Water is such a joy to paint especially with a visual counterpoint of structure with its reflections and shadows. Between the Glendale-Hyperion Viaduct and past Fletcher Drive Bridge, the Los Angeles River grows pastoral. Trees sprout from islands and river rocks break up the flow of water creating interesting patterns to paint, especially where a large pink pipe crosses the river.

I keep returning to paint at this one spot along the river known as The Confluence, where the Arroyo Seco tributary merges into the L.A. River main channel below Elysian Park. This used to be the main entrance to the city, and before that, its birthplace. It is a point of many transitions. Freeways and bridges soar overhead, railroad tracks line either side of the river, and concrete piers rise out of the river bottom creating gigantic spaces decorated with fifty years of extravagantly layered graffiti. Words, letters, numbers and signs plaster every available surface. The water of the river, the sound of freeway traffic, the rumble of trains combine with the shifting light to bounce color and sound around.

In the studio, my finished plein air studies done standing in the river bottom provide me with inspiration for larger paintings which are still in progress. The jumble of images and word fragments are motifs, as are the access roads and tunnels leading down to the river in the heart of the city. I'm keeping it loose, allowing rapid brushstrokes and partial abstraction to rise to the surface from my subconscious without too much literal translation of architecture. This is an ongoing exploration of the accumulation of culture found on the banks of the Los Angeles River today.


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