Painting began in earnest for me only after the fire had both destroyed most of the work that was made before it happened and ironically freed my mind up to begin the work proper.

First I need to explain something: the majority of this group of works are made using many many layers of transparent glazes affected by various modifications. Paintings made with glazes eat light and require very good light to be seen fully. This makes it very difficult to make photographs without specialist conditions. I have, therefore, taken mostly details and worked them up to something of their full power. (that is how they would look in ideal conditions with very good light)

I had been preparing the ground and writing the theory for nearly 20 years and it was definitely time to "make a start" but I was preparing to take a leap into the void and that needed some courage, especially as I could find no-one who was prepared to give me even verbal support. (most thought that the idea of allowing chance to make what they felt were vital decisions was at best pure madness)

I began by spending several weeks writing notes, compiling lists and throwing i-ching coins to generate random numbers (until a friend wrote me a small programme that would do it for me at the click of a button :). In this first instance it lasted some days which gave me time to get my head organised and get the process ordered

Once the numbers were generated and the decisions written down in "task lists" I took off my creative hat and put on my craftsman's hat and set to with the task of making the work, adhering strictly to the instructions, concentrating solely on the craft and allowing no space for the personal creative!! The work had to be allowed to develop how it might without any steering allowing only those slight discrepancies and variations that are always present in natural (and therefore chaotic) systems. This degree of focus proved very difficult to maintain and it was a steep learning curve, but it proved to be only instructive.