Short Bio
I wander all over the place. It is through wandering and observation that I gather ideas and energy for painting. I am a self taught artist and have been painting off and on my entire life. Though originally from Southern California, it was when I landed in the Bay Area in the late 70's I felt at home. There has never been a home in my life where I did not have some kind of space to paint in, be it a kitchen or a dark and damp basement. After retiring from a thirty-eight year teaching career, I have the time to take art making seriously. I work in Oakland in a small home studio painting primarily with acrylics. Once or twice a year I take a self-imposed solo art retreat, which provides me with a discipline and nothing else to do but paint.
Statement
I am inspired by the visual world around me and the emotions and moments that make me pause. I have no specific style, I am still discovering. Dark and light, both literal and figurative, seem to be important compositional and emotional elements. When I paint I trust that the work will continue and morph until it arrives where it is meant to be. Once I begin a painting, it is the movement of the brush and paint that keeps me going. In as much as I am an artist, I am more a student of art and will continue to be. It amazes me that sometimes work just falls out of me while other times it takes days of reworking images and sanding them away until a work feels at peace. Paintings are much like my wanderings, they are just explorations, some end in better places than others.
