About
I am a native San Diegan and began my exploration in art probably in the third grade when my teacher, Mrs. Shore, gave me a How-to-Draw book while I waited for my mother to pick me up after school. From there I took art courses offered in Junior High and High School, where my desire to become a professional artist was encouraged by a inspiring Art teacher, Beverly Schwartz. I took additional art courses at Grossmont Community College under Marjorie Hyde. While serving in the military at Ft Devens, I was able to take a couple of courses from a local artist, Paul Rahilly. After the Army, I attended San Diego State and relished courses taught by Bill Bowne and Jean Swiggett as well as several classes by Jack Jordan after graduation.
My art reflects my life experiences from summer camping on the rocky coast of Baja California with family and friends, to horse back riding and local cattle roundups with my in-laws, hence the Seascapes and Western Art influence. This was followed by playing Over-the-Line softball with long time school friends which inspired more abstract art. Finally I looked forward to annual fishing trips to Bridgeport in the Eastern Sierra’s with business mentors which triggered interest in landscape and Plein-Air painting. My art reflects those experiences and influences as well as those people who inspire me.
In the beginning I developed an early boyhood desire to draw and paint representational art influenced by the old masters like, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rubens, Vermeer and Titian. In high school I purchased a couple of Andrew Loomis books to develop my figurative drawing. After marriage I transitioned quickly to Western Art after being introduced to Russell, Remington, Moran, Leigh, and Dixon as I found a supporting audience of my wife’s family and friends. Next I became enamored with the more loose style of the impressionists like Cezanne, Matisse, Monet, Van Gogh, etc,. This art also created an admiration of the American landscape painting and after initial investigation I couldn’t get enough of artists like Redmond, Moran, Bischoff, Braun, Rose, Hassam, Frieseke, Metcalf, Mitchell, Payne, Sandzen, Twatchman, and Anna Hills.
As our children grew older my wife and I found ourselves with new freedom and began enjoying Over-the-Line softball for recreation with long time school friends as well as a growing fondness and respect for contemporary artists such Hopper, Avery, Pollock, Neel, Schiele, Modigliani, and then to Abstract and Cubism led by Picasso, who become my favorite. Personally,I found this type of art more challenging than my prior art. Therefore I’ve relished the creative experience provided by my more contemporary and abstract art projects. My artistic life, now deeply satisfying, as my Assemblages were juried into two International Competitions at The San Diego Art Institute in 2003 and 2004. My art seemed to be on a set course until a book in the window of a small local book store hijacked me into the world of Lucien Freud. This was an unfamiliar artist who stunned me, but who now is thought to be, if not the greatest, certainly among the greatest figurative artists of all time. His subject matter and brushstrokes floored me. It was something I had to try. I am still mesmerized by this style and continue to go back to it when so inspired.
Upon retirement I began experimenting with a number of computer photo and art programs and found myself energized by the Pop Artists, like, Warhol, Wesselman, Lichtenstein, etc . It was probably just something new. Using the computer has allowed me to manipulate photographs which led me into new and varied artistic territory. So, at this point I probably spend as much or more time working with photos that inspire me and turning them into something more creative and unanticipated that I can apply on canvas. That’s been my new flavor of the month, or possibly decade, who knows? Not I…. as I still anticipate addition figurative, portrait, landscape, and 3-dimensional ventures that need to be explored. After all, it’s not the destination, but the journey.