My Process

Painting is my first love. The richness of the color is sensuous and the oil is creamy and warm. I started out as a Painting major at the Columbus College of Art and Design and continued in that direction after transferring to the Kansas City Art Institute. My practice has never stopped.

Drawing was always a big part of the fine arts curriculum and that was, to me, a way of understanding what I saw. I believe that drawing is the most intellectual and analytical of all the visual arts. One must learn to see things that are far beyond what I call “functional seeing”. It is a way for me to express my inner authenticity. Drawing informs all of my work.

In my development as a painter/draftsman I found that the purest pigment of all is finely ground pastel. Ideally it is pure pigment in powder form that is compressed into sticks. After seeing the works of Degas in monotype, I was amazed by the combination of drawing, print and pastel colors that just drew me into another realm of possibilities. There is a magic in not trying to totally control the image, meeting what is in my intellect with what the medium determines and then marrying both to my emotions and intuition. My subject matter is very personal.

Recently I have been inspired to work with prints, in all their serendipitous splendors, as studies for large paintings.