About the artist

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Since I could remember I lived in my own reality as others lived in their reality - this often left me dreaming and feeling alone. I can remember looking up at the dark night and trying to explain this need to answer the question of what there would be if none of this ever existed. This thought started me off on a lifelong quest to find meaning and experiences to challenge and change me. To find meaning and express my joy at life the experience of making Art and being Alive. I hoped to make work that would be something that is able to convey a narrative of all these experiences to allow a new course in creativity. My first work when in my teens was crude, often painting on thrown away cardboard obtained by my neighbor that worked at the local paper. I was always influenced by art such as album covers and especially black light posters and colors from the 60's 70's images.

Education:

I obtained an education in a liberal Arts setting, (Blackburn College Carlinville Ill). Here all my interest could be explored in courses both in Art and other fields of academia I needed to grow as a young artist. While working as an assistant in the Art Department I was offered access to Artist showing in the gallery on campus. I was also often in charge or assisted in the curating and installation process by myself and the Professors I worked under. My early concepts at this time were based on Art as being tied closer to the Abstract spiritual - something honest without prejudice of theory. I obtained training in ceramics and sculpture as well as painting drawing and photography. I obtained classes in Spanish culture and Anthropology that later eventually worked on an archeological field survey in Illinois as a summer job linked to a course in Anthropology. This plus as the full range of Art History courses to get a Minor in Art History.

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MEXICO/OAXACA:

While completing my BFA, in 1992 I spent a semester in Mexico City first the UNAM University getting basics for language and understanding language culture and travel in Mexico City 20 million people. In the second semester seeking a more remote place to enroll in Art school, I moved to Oaxaca and while exploring murals and graffiti as well as the traditions of the local artist I was invited to study at the Belize Arte,(Casa De Cultura), by the School master and the School President. My work led to the enrollment in the Belize Arte and gave me the opportunity for a showing in the Casa De Cultura with work based on Grafitti and mural art of Mexico made from recycled material and material available such spray paint, plastic bags, and paper bags with ink and other cheap end easily obtained materials to make art. The art was purchased by the School, students and friends as I had no way to transport this work back to the states.

Early Experience:

My education at Blackburn, led to a job with a former alumnus, that helped me get employed in the Art Transport business in St. Louis MO. This employment right out of college exposed me to every form of Art from the MOMA to the Smithsonian and all forms of Art. Viewing so much art I was able to see my visual vocabulary growing and influenced me and my art greatly while I worked in this field of employment. I was educated about materials such as wax, varnishes and the reinforcement of materials and surface. I explored museums galleries and studios, kept journals of the work moved and regional concepts that include realism and colors tied to art from different parts of the country as well as the work from around the world. I was the most influenced by the raw power of Brut or outsider Art as well as Carl Jung's RedBook.

While in St. Louis I was able to get my work selected for a few juried shows. I felt the need to visit NY, and in 1997, I was involved with a job in Manhattan and after this experience with the city I decided to pack everything and move to NY and try to survive and show my work.

After living in Brooklyn that included DUMBO late 99 to 2004, I was part of the first Artist to open studios in the Art festival in DUMBO. Living in DUMBO was the artist dream of a place full of great artist willing to live in danger to have space and make art. The neighborhood had begun to get Popular with movies and TV settings as well as fashion and commercials being shot the neighborhood was turned to a wealthy neighborhood and led to many artist moving away and even the Graffiti was painted over. I decided to change jobs and sought a career in Counseling, after witnessing from the Brooklyn promenade, the second plane hit tower 2 on 9/11, and going down to the crater to do work one month after the tragedy.

Career change:

I was given the opportunity to take people with prison and drug histories on tours with support of a former program director to The Metropolitan Museum or the (MET). Most of the people with me were on Parole and with Prior Prison Histories and substance abuse as well as mental health barriers. They had been selected due to their interest in art and some were artist. They all had great Raw art skills like untouched by influence labeled by the art world as outsiders or just real artist.

After many hours in the substance abuse field and qualifying for a tough state test, I passed the CASAC NY exam on the first try. I was able to qualify as a substance abuse counselor and for the next 20 plus years, I worked with the most disadvantaged people in all boroughs of NY with most time spent in, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. I learned a lot about me and the people I lived with just surviving the stress of living and the role art played out on the streets, in graffiti and all forms of visual creations found in and on the streets. After many years working in the mental health field and using Writing Art all forms of creativity to support skills development for severely and persistently mentally ill people. I came to see how Art and music influenced supporting people to get through each day, I was determined to see the true power of Art. In my last year in NY, I was working in a methadone program in a major Hospital Queens NY. The February of the last I was there I was worker of the month it was a city job and I decided to Move to Arizona and work on my focus on making and selling my Art. 

Artist Statement :

When I'm creating art, I am imagining the world around me I can touch, feel, see, hear and the world hidden from me that only I can reveal to myself hidden deep in me only found in my Art. I feel I have been blessed with my ability to never stop playing. When in the act of painting I can feel the power of the unified creative process go through me to appear in the work as if less about the work than the aspect of creating from my imagination something, only I can see and feel as if a Shaman in a trance the art the revealing of lost worlds moving within and through me in Space and time, limitless beyond all dimensions. 

I’ve spent 40 years making and developing original one of a kind artwork that is based on the idea of each work as an individual memory or symbol. My art has been impacted by people from all walks of life. Each piece produces the language of the whole body of work that represents my life, similar to how each instrument and sound that one can make fills the symphony. Each painting is composed of color, line, and space, is created with the idea of composing a symphony of sight.