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 I grew up in New Jersey with a father who was a sculptor and painter. My mother was a free spirited French woman. I enjoyed drawing at an early age and often went along with my  father to zoos, circuses and farms to draw animals. Memories of objects such as toys and dishes in purple and yellow persist to this day.

Attending Bowdoin College, slogging along as an English major, I discovered color out beyond the bounds of the campus. One winter semester at the family home in Princeton, the greenhouse was a blast of pure red from blooming geraniums. I set down my index cards for a term paper and picked up a sketchpad and some oil pastels. In these years  I realized what I had experienced all my life: colors exist in a world of their own relationships. Their vitality commutes to the senses independently of objects or landscapes described in paintings.