Dear viewer of this website,

I’ve been asked to say “what my art means to me”. I shrink from this task for three reasons. Firstly, I ask is a poet required to draw an illustration of the poem, or a composer written description of the music? I think not very often and less so successfully.

Secondly I fear that to answer will bore you, or give you cause to complain and say “pretentious nonsense”. Lastly I feel inadequate intellectually to sum up my art or anyone elses, especially now when anything can pass as “Art”. To help with this difficulty, I’ve decided to use an example, and to see if these foggy words can somehow reflect some understanding of the matter. The “Opium dream”, opposite, is a large and complex work, unfinished or “in progress” and some say a masterpiece.

I drew inspiration from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan”, the first lines of which are “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree:”, and from the original source of his inspiration. The image is of the construction site of the “stately pleasure-dome”.

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