My work is work . Like my father , I do it , I talk about it when I ' m not doing it and I think about it every morning .
My encaustic work focuses less on the brush these days and almost exclusively on the encaustic pen stylus , a small heated electric tool with a slotted pen tip . It is similar in effect to the hot metal cestrum the Greeks used to paint the famous Fayum mummy portraits .
My work tends to be fairly small and very suitable for the intricate lines and dotted shading produced by the small pen tip , at no more that 1 / 16th of an inch across . I like the slowness and difficulty it provides . I like the fact that it uses very little beeswax . I feel it is important to consider the plight of the world ' s precious honey bee .
I force myself to be off kilter . To be unskilled and a dilettante . To always be a beginner . There is no complete language that describes what I do or how or why I do it .
Encaustic is just another medium — one still needs to have an idea or a vision and a place to start , just like an oil painting or watercolor . Subject still has importance . Encaustic doesn ' t paint itself . The advancement of ideas and the promotion of visual language is important to me .