The story so far...
BFA in Visual Arts from Colorado State, 1990, MA & MFA in Printmaking from University of Iowa, 1992-93.
Competitive, group, and solo shows and awards steadily through that period and through the mid-90s in Turkey, where I was teaching painting, printmaking, and mixed media focused on local materials, at Uludag University in Bursa. I got to where I could speak Turkish well enough to teach my classes without translators. Long story.
Got married, took advantage of the dotcom boom to come to DC and switch from academics to IT consulting, became a parent, bought a split level colonial with a pool on a wooded acre in rural Virginia, fell out of love, back in and mutually, irrevocably, out again, divorced, sold the house during the pandemic, saw my son off to college, kept making art throughout, but not showing.
In July of 2024, after a lot of consideration, I walked away from my role as a director of professional service programs to take up a full time studio practice, and that brings us up to date.
The paintings don’t need any of that as context, or if they do they won’t be in the world for long. They mostly just constitute a detailed record of every deliberation that went into their making. They have taught me a great deal —that we remain whom we’ve been, that the danger of exploring is getting lost while that of turning inward is getting stuck, that grief can be an essential companion, that symmetry can indicate greater entropy, that asynchronous and asymmetrical moments are the cracks that let life in. I think they deserve and reward extended attention -- both the paintings and the little pocket universes that they respectively host.
They give me joy and I feel most solidly here just after finishing one. They are done when no further effort would add anything substantive, and when they make a compelling case that they deserve to be kept from the landfill. I’m hoping they continue to find an audience who shares that recognition. I would be happy to keep them all if I could, and I miss the ones I’ve sold. But keeping them only spares them as long as I’m here, and will complicate things for those who survive me when I no longer am. And I need to sell at least enough to sustain a continuing practice. Hence this website.