The fact of creativity, and the multiplicity of creative processes, continually fasciate me. I am drawn to considerations of form and architecture in various media and modes of thought, and the interplay and interpenetration of energies which manifest in form. The manifold creative acts that necessarily precede the completion of a finished work are themselves a profound source of inspiration and valued objects of contemplation. My work as an educator, particularly with young children, has allowed me to stay in close contact with the fundamentals of artmaking in my own practice. The intimate relationship between play, learning, problem-solving and creativity are never far from my awareness as I work.

Whether composing music, or concocting a multimedia piece, I often begin by considering both the overall structure of the piece and small motivic elements simultaneously. Musical material, sketches, video clips or sculptural elements are collected, invented, combined, jostled, stretched and compressed. Through this free play with materials, emotions and meanings come into focus, and a direction for the material emerges. Meanwhile, the large-scale form of the work is expressed initially as a visual sketch, written narrative, or other verbal conceptualization. The finished work is usually the result of the dialectical relationship between these "top-down" and "bottom-up" processes.

I am interested in the relationship of our physicality to the creative process, and to cognition generally. The exercise of the hand, eye, ear, and voice are critical aspects of cognition, and I seek to combine modes of thought, emotion and action in the construction of poetic environments that enable meaning generation for participants as they engage in collaborative relationship with me and other participants through the artwork. I strive to make these environments semiotically rich and of sufficient complexity to reward sustained and repeated engagement.

Making marks with pen and ink, or making sound with the voice or by exciting a string remain as important as recombining large swaths of text with a keystroke or directing a machine's energies through code. Technology is in our nature, and is thus a part of nature. Our tools and instruments extend our reach and mediate our experience. I strive to maintain an awareness of the potentials and limitations of our technologies, and in my multimedia and computer-based work I hope to further illuminate, however imperfectly, a relationship to our technologies which is responsible to our own natures and to nature as a whole. These strivings constitute a political dimension that inheres my work.

Research and writing are integral to my practice, and I regard creative work and scholarship as facets of a single vocation. Investigations into theoretical and cultural dimensions of music, directions in postmodern and (ahem) post-postmodern philosophies enable me to theorize my own work and discover it's place in the context of conversation with my contemporaries as well as art practices of the past. Close observation of young children as they grow and learn, and readings on cognitive development have helped me to better understand different styles of learning and modalities of being, and these studies inform my approach to interactivity.

Artmaking for me is a deeply celebratory act. Even when it is experienced and contemplated in solitude, even when the content and connotation are somber or tragic. The act of making, of bringing forth, is at once a consequence and an engine of evolution, and affirms our place in a continuum of creation.