In my family the custom of sending and receiving cards at Christmas and birthdays is so beloved that it is more important than gifts. Consequently I began making mine in the 1970's, because the best gift would be a new work of art, however small. Each month I make a dozen or fewer cards in seasonal colors and themes. September 2011, for example, watercolor oak leaves on mulberry paper enhanced with black ink and copper metallic acrylic. Congratulations, all best wishes, condolences sailed through snail mail. This is the process of making that card, from my original 1995 sketch to a finished card.

At Christmas, an edition limited to 200 for family, friends, and clients. In 2012, I gave myself a sabbatical from making new art for that year's Christmas card, and used art from all the previous years. This refreshes this particular practice, allowing new inspiration and technique to develop.

I learned to overcome obstacles like weather, and to paint in series to expand my vision and allow a subject to demand more ambitious format and treatment.

The beginning of my sketchbook practice, the ground and foundation of all my subsequent work. Since March 2012, the 40th anniversary of beginning this book, I study all of them, expecting to find something new.

My second sketchbook of a series begun in 1972 and continuing into the present. Voiceover comments on life in Baltimore City during this time, and my development of art practice and process.

Sketchbook practice is integral to my teaching. A four-session workshop in watercolor painting for beginners, based in a 7x10" sketchbook which becomes a reference for independent painting. The sessions teach brush handling, color mixing, water management, still life and landscape painting. The fourth session takes place outdoors, weather permitting. The materials kit (required) is artist-quality paint, paper, and accessories, so that students are not fighting poor-quality supplies as they learn. Learning step-by-step, students find that they can't do it wrong.

The first group was only three students taking Brush and Book at Creative Alliance, spring 2010. Their passion and determination were so strong that they demanded a continuing monthly workshop after the course ended. For more than 2 years after, they supported a sequel workshop, Beyond Brush and Book, tailored to specific materials and subjects as these students requested them.

A Baltimore City garden club hired me to teach Brush and Book as their monthly program, reserving four of their meetings for this purpose. Their practice is to hold these meetings in their homes, which lend themselves admirably for the purpose.

I hope to offer Brush and Book to other groups, as a community art project, in schools, after-school programs, staff inservice programs, hospital and other clinical settings.

Watercolor collage became my medium of choice for carrying a sketchbook image further, to a larger, freestanding work.

Studies, materials and tools for a watercolor collage. Begun as a sketch in Rye, England in 2012, this continues to develop like a long meditation on a tawny fall day in East Sussex, viewed from the parapet of Rye Castle.

Sketchbook pages and watercolor collage adapted for commercially printed greeting cards: for some of us, more important than gifts.

As Baltimore struggled in the aftermath of the death of Freddie Gray, April 2015, I focused myself on Freddie Gray and his life, which seems like a catalog of what must change in Baltimore. I began a brush meditation using classic watercolor practice to mix gray using complimentary colors (red/green, yellow/purple, blue/orange) in ascending intensity. Four panels became the foundation of an installation, with an unfinished portrait framed in a Gray box, with Gray bandanas for viewers to take away and wear and use. This work will never be for sale. Exhibited in Big Show, Creative Alliance, 2015.

A memoir in the form of a graphic novel, about growing up in Baltimore and becoming an artist with the Civil Rights Movement going on around me. Part 1 begins with the first story, "I Enter the Riot Zone," about my experience during the riots in Baltimore, April 1968, after the murder of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The Baltimore Uprising, April 2015, following the death of Freddie Gray from injuries sustained in police custody, inspired me to examine this experience and understand it differently. Part 1 continues with my journey away from Baltimore and around Great Britain that summer. The next story, "I Cross the Pond,"  takes me by sea to the University of London, where I learned many things, including where the riot zone actually was that year. Eight more stories will follow.
Part 2 begins in 2015. After the death of Freddie Gray, I realized that what I knew about his life was at least a partial catalog of what must change in Baltimore. I created a conceptual work of art, "Meditation in Gray," and as I made it, I studied coverage in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and National Public Radio. By the time I had completed "Meditation in Gray, I had a map for a new journey into Baltimore. Part 2 will have 10 stories.