When I was very young our family lived for a year in a three room house under construction, without its second floor and with a flat tar paper roof. When it rained or snowed pots and pails caught the dripping water leaking from above onto the concrete below. Walking was precarious - there were no straight paths. The fireplace provided heat. The dine-in kitchen was windowless. The childish charm of those early years never left me. It never seemed hard. It seemed exciting.
In my school age years, I had evident difficulty with hand writing the alphabet, reading, even more so with written numbers and an unfathomable confusion with musical nomenclature. I got all the negative labeling conceivable. My attention span drifted into daydreams. I found myself rereading/rewriting words, sentences and paragraphs numerous times. My grades were deplorable. I was branded lazy about everything. I struggled so hard to please but the anxiety caused by failures made the conditions worse.
I had a good memory for spoken concepts (not for names), and excelled in q&a class participation. I loved to draw. I drew very accurate maps. I liked drawing people in action, but drawing from intuition was dissuaded at home as a useless endeavor. I was urged to copy mechanical/structural engineering perspective drawings without the drafting tools needed. I didn’t have the patience or presence of mind for that. If I was told not to do something a certain way I'd become so anxious about avoiding it that invariably I would end up doing it the wrong way anyhow.
After failing my first attempt at college, I discovered ART. A friend mentored me in raku ceramics. I discovered I could learn easily through observing and copying a set of actions. My friend told me he went to school to learn art. A light went on and shone on a whole new world of skills. In my next attempt at college, I enrolled in a class on various methodologies for study based on different learning styles. I was told, though not diagnosed, that I probably had a different learning ability called dyslexia along with attention deficit. It never was properly diagnosed. In retrospect it all the trials of my youth make some sense.
Artist Statement
For me, every creative process begins with presence. In a state of quiet, undistracted attention, ideas emerge organically. Rather than pursuing predetermined concepts, I allow impressions and intuition to guide each piece. This results in a fluid and continuous practice where one work often begins in thought before the previous is complete.
My paintings arise from reminiscences, meanings and symbologies of the concept 'home'. These pieces embrace the nature/nurture, intuition/circumstance, open/closed aspects of home, community and co-respondence.
My painting process is an intuitive response to problems that arise; real, imagined, or discovered; within the evolving image. Using aqua-media paints and stained papers, I build semi-transparent and opaque layers of bold, vibrant color. These layers are often wiped, scraped, or sanded back, revealing earlier marks and textures. The method evokes natural and geological processes, archaeology, urban renewal, and psychological excavation. Tools may include brushes, knives, trowels, rollers, sprayers, blotters, sanding blocks, and tape. The resulting images are abstract, yet narrative and situational; investigating interactions between humanity and nature through iconic symbols.
In my sculptural work, I combine found natural and industrial materials with both pre- and post-industrial components. Through deliberate composition and vivid color, these works establish a material dialogue between nature and nurture, instinct and intervention. Sculptural forms explore the dynamic of light and shadow while expressing tensions between interior and exterior, inclusion and exclusion, transparency and opacity, obstruction and access, permanence and impermanence. Shifts in physical scale speak to the viewers’ imagination and vulnerability. the activity of gathering natural materials, the sticks and stones, is a reverential, meditative sauntering.
My work is shaped by an enduring sense of interconnectedness; of place, of attentiveness, of response. It is influenced by the rhythms and contrasts I witness in and between natural and cultural systems.
To engage with these works is, perhaps, to encounter not only my personal experience, but to step into the shared space between artist, viewer, and the wider world.
Education
The University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1973 through 1978, graduating with a BA in Studio Arts and concentrations in mixed media sculpture and drawing.
The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 1979 through 1981, graduating with a MA in Studio Arts and concentrations in mixed media sculpture and drawing.
Exhibitions
1978 Undergraduate Final Project Exhibit, bold colorful polychromatic freestanding woven wire mesh structures, Department of Art, School of Education, University of Wisconsin,
1978 Wisconsin Biennial Exhibition, Outdoor Sculpture, Madison Art Center, Madison, Wisconsin
1978 'Clay As Art', Invitational Exhibit, Performing and Fine Arts Building Gallery, School of Art and Design, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
1981 MA Thesis Exhibit, wall mounted and freestanding painted wood, metal, glass, paper, cord structural elements of exploration: ship's compass, dog sleds, map case, flat and rolled hand-made maps, The University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM
1983-1986 Sales and Rental Gallery, paintings, prints and drawings, Madison Art Center (aka Madison Museum of Contemporary Art), Madison, WI
1986 RAYOVAC Corporation, Corporate Headquarters Collection Exhibit, Madison, WI (two purchases for permanent collection)
1986-1988 LaBrea Interiors, bold polychromatic metal pedestal cafe tables in window displays, La Brea Interiors Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1988-2018, Sierra Artists' Network (aka North Tahoe Arts), various group exhibits, Tahoe City, CA
2004 Stony Ridge Cafe, solo exhibit: 'Drawing in the Nature of Things', Tahoma, CA
2023 Crooked Tree Arts Center, Members' Guild Salon Show, CTAC Traverse City, MI
2024 Crooked Tree Arts Center, Members' Guild Salon Show, CTAC Traverse City, MI
2024 Glen Arbor Art Center, Members' Show, Glen Arbor Art Center, Glen Arbor, MI
2024 Crooked Tree Arts Center, 'Fields of Vision' juried exhibition, CTAC Petoskey, MI
2025 Crooked Tree Arts Center, Members' Guild Salon Show, CTAC Petoskey, MI
2025 Crooked Tree Arts Center, 10 Fold juried exhibition, CTAC Traverse City, MI
2025 Crooked Tree Arts Center, Wooden and Earthen juried exhibition, CTAC Traverse City, MI
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