For the majority of my career my work has focused on the earth, and its power and beauty. I continued to explore the significance of the earth and its strength, and have sought ways to incorporate these two-dimensional works into installations by incorporating paintings in a three-dimensional presentation.

Inspired by Francisco Goya's "Disasters," HOPE, in the Midst of War, Death and Destruction was first installed in 2003 at Tropico Nopal Gallery in Los Angeles. HOPE consists of interconnecting mixed-media installation pieces, accompanied by original gouache on paper and/or oil on canvas, a central mixed media "mandala" of manipulated photographs depicting tragic images of war dead, beginning with the Civil War through the Iraq Conflict, encircled by symbols of HOPE: the elements of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air.

HOPE focuses on the reconciliation of opposites: the beauty and tranquility of nature with war's violence and carnage. Images of nature speak to universality and unity for the world and its inhabitants. It speaks to humanity's first purpose: to find tranquility in nature, even in the "midst" of the devastation and confusion that inundate us daily.