Falling Forward is about the discovery and pursuit of a new and unfamiliar way of working. Getting to that place is not always a clear path as there are self-imposed obstacles that block and that I trip over.  There is comfort in working in a familiar way that gives a certain result. We fall backwards into that familiarity. Falling Forward is about arriving at some new place. 

During the pandemic I made a lot of large paintings. They were based on drawings I had made for years, of forms, some wildly different, all invented but from their source in nature: trees, plants, animals and the human form. The paintings always maintained a figure to ground relationship. While these forms might be seen as abstract, they were always rooted in a place. They referenced a landscape setting and some sort of sky; a place for the forms to rest or sit upon. My work has never been fully abstract as it has always clung to the figure/ground relationship . 

I did some studies exploring this relationship, creating a web of forms on top of forms, including birds and figures and all the shapes I had created for years.  The overlapping and intersections were full of new and unpredictable shapes. I chose new shapes and areas for calligraphic invention and I saw there was a lot of freedom and freshness to it.  It was a very stimulating and exciting process and way of working. Falling Forward came from a year full of these little and not so little adventures.