My images usually come from an "ah" moment – staring out a window, driving up the coast, walking my dog – when I see beyond myself or see myself in everything – a moment so beautiful it leaves me breathless. I think trees are spirits: their beauty awesome, dark lace against pale skies. Like us they have stories to tell.

I'm a studio artist. I take lots of photographs, tape them to my walls, and live with them. When image and memory merge, I start to work.

Early on I remember seeing the work of Andrew Wyeth. I was struck with the stillness it provoked. Over the years, I have been influenced by Monet, Hopper, Munch, O'Keefe, Van Gogh and Rothko. I'll never forget visiting Storm King, in upstate New York and seeing my first Noguchi, or Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water House in Bear Run Pennsylvania. Lately I've been in awe of Japanese woodblock prints - the landscapes of Utagawa Hiroshige and Hokusai - and, after a visit to the new DeYoung in, the more contemporary work of Chira Obata.