Growing up in Israel-Palestine, with all its complexities, conflicts and inherent questions, Einstein's words may explain my overlapping interests in both the arts, nature, and the social sciences. The eminent existential psychologist-philosopher Viktor Frankl made an insightful observation when he concluded that the pursuit of meaning is "the primary motivational force in humankind". I am fascinated by the intricacies and beauty of our world and by the nature of spirituality and our seemingly insatiable thirst for meaning and relationship. And I find the arts a wonderful medium for reflection on these things. This region of the world which has cradled three of the world's great faiths and been a strategic cultural crossroads in human developmental history has left a storehouse of impressions for me that express themselves in my art.

Despite the conflicts that were part of life in the Middle East, I have precious memories of remarkable people and sacred places, of rivers, springs, oases and waterfalls, the Sea of Galilee, and the contrasting beauties of the deserts and the Mediterranean which we explored and enjoyed. There are stories everywhere etched in the landscape and in the faces of people from all walks of life who have been drawn to that land. It was there I met my beautiful wife who grew up in the troubled Gaza Strip. And it was also through her eyes and those of many significant others that I began to understand the experiences and perspectives that comprise the Middle East.

I left Israel in 1971 for Virginia and began my educational journey in premedical biology and sociology, hungry to understand and perhaps heal the world I knew. I became interested also in conflict studies, in mediation and restorative justice and trained to become a mediator. After deciding against medical school I moved on to graduate work in philosophy, ethics, world religions, and a reexamination of my own faith and convictions, wanting to understand the dynamics that guide our belief systems and our relationships. Then more of an aside, my interests in art involved photography, ceramics, sculpture, and painting. In 1983, these interests were piqued in a new way on a trip home. While in Gaza we visited a Palestinian artist by the name of Nihad Sabassi, a woodburner and watercolorist. Something in his work led me to pick up an old woodburning tool from my childhood and from that grew a new enchantment with the art of pyrography and a deeper appreciation for the arts.

In turning to art, I have come to look at the world in a new way.. I have come to feel that it is in giving expression to our perceptions and ideals and to our love for each other and for life, that we get in touch with the essence of who we are and understand something of the mind of the Artist behind it all. I believe it is in those expressions that we are ultimately drawn together as a human family and understand the broader meaning of our life that transcends the differences we represent.

This past summer '07 I began an MA Program in Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. I've felt a need these last years to recapture a sense of hope in the face of our growing adversarialism and conflict around the world. Despite the compassion, goodness, and altruism that I believe are innately part of our nature I have become convinced we must better understand and transcend our differences as a human family or we will not survive. The challenge is far more demanding of courage, insight, intelligence, moral imagination and integrity, will and art than the easier paths of intimidation, violence, destruction and war we have more often taken when we have been at odds. I hope somehow to stir these truths more creatively in my art. And I hope we may together find renewed stimulus to muse and conspire in this common language of our intuition toward a sense of awe and hope in the beauty we represent and in the bond we share as a human family. It is a beautiful world and we must tend to it and to each other or we are lost.