Cave Night Mare, Signed • Numbered • Certificate of Authenticity Included Edition of 15, 22x30 Gallery-Wrapped Canvas

Cave Night Mare was created under deliberate constraint.

In a painting class at Monterey Peninsula College, Professor Thorson gave a simple but severe instruction: paint the background monochromatically, then close your eyes and paint an abstract composition—no correction afterward.

I’m not an abstract painter.

So with my eyes closed, I imagined a horse.

What emerged was this figure. When I opened my eyes, I resisted the instinct to repair or clarify it. The rule was to leave the work exactly as it was—an image formed without sight, judgment, or revision.

What remains is not an abstraction, but something closer to a remembered animal, or a presence felt rather than seen.