Welcome!

I love color and I feel energized when surrounded by a vast language of colors!   My images reflect an inner buoyancy and progressive optimism. Abstract painting is not something I wanted to try on…it is way beyond that.  It is a part of who I am, a part of my personality….my nature.    I am a native of the Southwest Oregon Redwood Coastal region.  I grew up playing in the Redwoods & coastal beaches knowing, feeling & respecting the physical giant, rugged power, beauty & freedom of the Pacific Northwest Coast.  Later in life,  knowing & understanding the straight forward-infinite landscapes of the Texas Panhandle and the surround-sound of the enchanted, spiritual environment of New Mexico.

 My earlier works of art were developed at The Stout-McCourt Gallery, located in the avant-garde, bohemian music and arts district known as “Deep Ellum” in Dallas, Texas.  My studio was located above the Stout-McCourt Gallery from the late 1980’s until 1993, when I moved to New Mexico.    As New Mexico does…..it attracts artists due to its'  unique light.  Sometimes, late in the afternoon-it can be a sienna retro-filter, casting a hue of purple shadows on the mountains, sometimes its a warm highlighter of golden light dancing through the deserts, sometimes its the powerful reds of the sunrise…..sometimes its the luminous oranges and yellows of the sunset.  It is a never-ending love I have found...how I love the freedom, the mystery,   and the individualistic expression of abstract works of art. It comes from the soul, with its'  own language, its' own way of life - captured, caressed by a painters touch,  it arrives alive, vibrant and then archived upon its vessel.  

 As I start  a painting, I think about how I would like each painting to have its own kind of personality while still being a reflection of my series of work. Once I begin, my work begins to guide me. 

My paintings are created through a series of many layers and textures and are not created all at once.  I currently have 3 easels in my studio and this allows me to work on several paintings each day, unless it is a special project and then I will focus on that project.  

I work in oil, acrylic, oil stick, pastels, paint pens and  use a variety of textures like sand, pumice, glass beads or actual paint to create different kinds of surfaces and effects.

 I was born into a family who specialized in dairies, ranches,  farming, beef & dairy cows. My family also rode and competed in horse racing and rodeos. Our lives were often a journey between Oregon , Texas and Nevada. 

Dad had grown up in the heart of the dust bowl years in Dalhart, Texas , the depression and then served in WWII.  

From his early 20's, he began shooting dice with his Navy buddies and gambling became his life long passion. 

I don't remember the first time I went to Las Vegas, it seems to have been ever-present in our lives but I did grow up there off and on. I have vivid memories of playing craps with dad at Binion's Horseshoe Casino on the old strip, downtown,  the only place he played at. My parents eventually moved to Las Vegas, NV and spent the remained of their lives there. 

Our dairy farm in Oregon processed milk and milk products (ice cream, cheese, etc.,) and were sold throughout the state of Oregon to schools, colleges and grocery stores. Another dairy was built in the Texas panhandle and we also grew corn & wheat there and the harvested crops were contracted and sold to Frito-Lay.  My responsibilities included helping in herding  milk cows to the milk parlor, feeding baby calves before and after school and taking care of my horse, Fred and my dog, Snowball.  

 My mother’s side of the family were creative. My mom was a hobbyist landscape/sea scape oil painter, fantastic gardener, loved creating ceramics,  raising pheasants from incubation and  she also worked full time at our dairy plant. My grandmother worked in small, local galleries in southern California and  she was a portrait painter  and my aunt painted western oil scenes. 

As a kid, I used to sit with my mom and paint with her and I think it initiated my interest in painting. 

 During the late 1980’s, I moved to Dallas, Texas, where my day job was working for real estate title & escrow companies closing mortgage loans. After work, I would go to my studio located in Deep Ellum, the avant-garde, bohemian music and arts district in Dallas. 

It was important to me to be financially self-supportive and each week, I worked my full time day job 5 days a week and I was also in my studio 5 to 6 days a week painting late nights and on weekends...I maintained that kind of a schedule for 4 years. I would go to my day job thinking about my art and go to my studio thinking about my day job….that was then...my life.  

My parents weren’t supportive of my chosen genre of art.  They didn’t like abstract art and they were adamant about it….. but I pursued it anyway. 

I found a strength in knowing I was fulfilling something in me in how I expressed my colors and eventually,  discovered a  beautiful and unique kind of " freedom " that I could only have discovered due to my parents’ extreme disapproval of my art.

 Maybe it was kind of a rebellion in me, but that word " rebellion" seems to be too strong of a definition to classify  my art as a desire used to describe a rebellious spirit…because even as a kid, I had a real and natural love for abstraction. It is like a language, it’s a part of me and  I would rather call it a " freedom."  It is that kind of a " freedom" that releases  and strengthens  me whenever I paint.