I'm a printmaker working in western Massachusetts. I'm the director and resident artists at Zea Mays Printmaking.

The images in this series of etchings come from photographs I take of people in public places: fairs, parades, museums, restaurants, etc. I am trying to capture mundane yet poignant, timeless moments in our culture.

I usually take my camera with me whenever I go out into the world. I like to photograph people in their leisure. Some photos intrigue me because of the abstracted forms of the figures, or the relationship of light to dark, or the narrative they imply. I will make a drawing from the photograph and use the drawing to begin an etching on copper or a photo intaglio print. Some of these etchings begin with a deep aquatint over the entire plate; this means creating a texture that will hold ink and print black. I then scrape and burnish the light into the aquatinted copper, essentially creating an image that emerges out of the darkness. Other etchings begin with a drawing and the tone is added subsequently through spit bite, drypoint, line etching, lift grounds, etc. This happens in stages and often on multiple plates. In either case the images owe their drama to the relationship of light and dark. The plates are then hand printed in limited editions, usually of ten.