The Story

I was always the kid quietly doodling and drawing, dreaming and writing. So when it came time to choose a career, it was only natural that I would pursue a life in the arts.  After some initial dualism studying both Literature and Fine Art I finally set the tiller firmly towards the painter’s life in my early twenties.

I mastered the art of rendering objects and people realistically early in high school.  I would use these skills to draw fantastical, allegorical worlds filled with dragons and symbolic items.  Every image meant something more than just what it looked like. I think my avid interest in literature fueled these ideas and the desire to create the visual equivalent of a story.  Once plopped into the world of art college (1978 – 1983) I was made aware that realism was considered passe, redundant.  After all a photo could take care of recording what an item looked like quite ably!  

To this day however, I can’t shake my love of making something look real. In a way, spending the tremendous effort and time that it takes to depict a thing confirms it exists, that I know it, and by extension, that I exist!  The magic of the studio is that, in the process of bringing into being an object, an idea, a question, I can extricate single gleanings of how my consciousness works.  By becoming cognizant of those workings, I come to know myself.

Sounds so narcissistic, yet here’s the thing about the arts:  I believe that if I can accurately reconstruct what I perceived, in and through all my humanness you may experience my perception in and through all your humanness.  In giving form to my perceptions, you may recognize, (literally – to know again- to identify someone or something from having encountered them before) the thing being expressed.