I have always been interested in art, but took no training until entering the Boston Museum School at the age of twenty. In 1979 I received a BFA from that school, in association with Tufts University.
I have always felt that my true home was in the West, and most of my paintings reflect that feeling. Landscape paintings have been my principal concern since leaving school where I had painted in various abstract styles. Over time, the abstract paintings became pattern repeated, stylized elements have always remained very important to me.
I would characterize my paintings as brightly colored, "cartoony," contemporary visions of the West and Southwest. Their contemporary aspects are tempered, especially in paintings of people, with a little nostalgia. In many cases, I like to include symbolic elements in a painting, as well as, present a rather narrative pictorial statement with abstract/pattern concern. I hope they all make a nice mix. If strange or sinister things appear in my paintings they do so to add richness to my basically optimistic, beauty-orientated vision of life. Also, when I include such things as roadside trash, old tire, or belching smokestacks, it is with the idea not that these things need to be pointed out as ugly or dangerous, but they, in their own way, are a part of the "scene" and contribute their own color and interest. Although I am "culturally" a conservative, I find that many objects that are products of modern life are nice and worthy of painting.
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