I create art because it is just something I have always done in one form or another since I was very young. In spite of holding a full time job, I have always found time for art. My paintings all have special meaning to me. I paint places that I have been, things that I love and have an emotional attachment to and things that are just beautiful. I feel that I am painting memories. There is no room for ugly things in my life.
I paint in a realistic but not a photographic style. I love color and tend to exaggerate it in my paintings. When I see a landscape that fills me with awe or a beautiful flower, I want to share that feeling with others. I want them to feel the beauty, peace, calm and tranquility that I feel. This comes across most strongly in my plein air paintings and my paintings of flowers. I have a special affection for Hollyhocks, country roads and farms. They remind me of my childhood on my grandparent's farm.
I also love windows. What possibilities! What mystery! What is behind them, what will draw you through them? Are you outside looking in or inside looking out? Are you curious or spying when you look in or are you feeling imprisoned or wanting to escape when you look out. These are unconscious thoughts that have emerged through the years as I have chosen subjects both to photograph and to paint.
Biography
I was born in Chicago and have been painting and drawing or otherwise creating something on and off since I was a child. Both my father and grandfather painted so it seems to run in the family. I attended the Drisi Studio Academy of Fine Art where I learned the classical method of drawing and painting. I have been studying with Frankie Johnson at the Mainstreet Art Centre in Lake Zurich. After spending my working life as an accountant I continually struggle between my accountant's left brain and my artist's right brain. I think I have finally come to a tentative settlement between the warring factions. I will rely on my accountant's brain to perfect my technique and my artist's brain to add "spark" to my paintings. At least that is the goal I am working toward. It is a constant struggle.
In addition to studying with Mohamed Drisi, a portrait artist in Glenwood Illinois, and at Mainstreet Art Center in Lake Zurich Illinois I have taken intensive workshops with Frankie Johnson and Bonnie Paruch at the Clearing in Ellison Bay, Wisconsin, with Diane Rath and with plein air painters Gabor Svagrik, Kenn Backhaus and Ron Rencher.
I am a member of Oil Painters of America and Chicago Pastel Painters. My paintings are in private collections in California, Wisconsin and Massachusetts.
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