This project is funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts. This project is also funded in part by a generous award from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of The Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina. My paintings are inquiries into the surface of things, namely color and texture, for their power to emote and conceal. My studio process begins with oil on panel paintings that I build in layers of impasto. Once dry, I carve into the surfaces with wood carving tools. The harvested chips of paint are used to start new works, seeds to germinate new paintings. Leftover supports become raw material for new constructions, and I embroider my used hand rags into patterns modeled after scrap fabric quilting. As the graft from one painting morphs into the next, my studio is a body in the act of becoming. Like a process of tillage, my paintings grow to reveal crops of color, pattern, and form. Bluets is a recent painting in my quilted series, a collage of cloths sourced from my discarded pile of studio rags (baby wipes that I use to clean my hands and brushes while painting). It offers an alternate ending in the painting’s life cycle, revealing the incremental gesture as a transformative tool.