After years of an in depth exploration of black and white media: ink, graphite, charcoal and conte’ crayon,  I decided to enter the world of color.  I found painting overwhelming and  a big obstacle was the paint brush.  While my hand knew intimately and instinctively what to do with a drawing instrument, the paint brush remained a foreign obstacle.  I tried several alternatives;  chalk pastel, colored inks, and colored pencils, eventually settling on oil pastels.  They offered a variety of textures to play with and the intensity of color I wanted to explore.  I could hold them in my hand like a pencil or a stick of charcoal while  adding layers and layers of color to the thick sheets of paper I’d come to love.  I would return over and over to  dig into the layers of color,  adding and subtracting from the dense thicknesses in an almost sculptural way.  Eventually I conquered my awkwardness with the paint brush but I have never let go of boxes of oil pastels.