Nature is beauty, birth, life, death and ecstasy. Nature provides and destroys, provokes questions and provides answers. Nature inspires. The more I study the natural environment, the closer I move toward it, the more abstract it appears. A petal becomes a lush velvet blanket; a feather transforms into a riot of patterns, a leaf a fibrous other world.

And as I draw nearer still, the freer I have become to experiment with media. I have chosen to represent the many bodies of Florida's water. Rivers that run crystal clear, from a bubbling head of cold water; swamps that are so murky and filled with vegetation the water is nearly camouflaged; lakes that sit stagnant, the Gulf of Mexico, from above looking green, but up close is just a haze of salty brown.

PlexiGlas and acrylic paint are the medium I choose to work with to create these looks - all different from underneath, but on the surface, all the same. PlexiGlas gives me the ability to create a wet look as well as depth in the images that I create.

After realistic representation and mildly abstracted natural forms, my work tends to develop into an environment that emulates the inner workings, the mechanics, of whatever my subject might be -- be it water, air or a flower petal.

It is one thing to see nature. Quite another to explore it, experience it, so closely, so intimately. I have great respect for the natural world and what it has to offer me as a person and as an artist. I've spent much of my life exploring and learning about nature, and I'll likely spend the rest of my life doing the same -- and attempting to share my perspective and my passion with others.