ARTIST'S STATEMENT

My family has lived in Oregon since the 1800’s, which contributes to a deeply personal relationship to this region’s diverse ecosystems, waters, and wildlife. My visual art and poetry have become an ongoing narrative of intuitive recognition: that Nature does not live in the boundaries that humans do, in tiny squares on a satellite map, but within the vast landscape we have built our homes upon.

Canvas, paint, brushes, camera, film, pen, paper, fingers, words, symbols, legends, poems, Earth Verse; these are the tools of my trade.The works I create are an expression of my love and respect for Nature, how important it is to feel connected with the elements, to understand my holistic place in the environment, and to satisfy my need for soulful connection to the natural world. My work explores the beauty and inspiration of Wild Nature simply enduring; going about its daily business, living in the present moment, at peace, and yet…still influenced by our presence. 

My images have been exhibited and collected worldwide, and are installed in many corporate collections. I have participated in exhibits in New York, Seattle, Portland, and Los Angeles, at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Chicago, the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and other various art venues throughout the nation.


MY PRACTICE

Currently residing in the Portland area, I have worked as a full time artist since 1997. I am a self-taught painter, photographer and poet. I create acrylic paintings and mixed media works on various substrates, as well as, fine art photographs, using digital and vintage film cameras. My work in the studio is a practice of mindfulness: focusing on what is happening right now, within a constantly changing, natural, environment that gently offers to guide and inspire me for as long as I take the time to listen.

A FAVORITE QUOTE THAT SAYS IT ALL

"I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world. It's difficult to describe because it's an emotion. It's analogous to the feeling one has in religion that has to do with a god that controls everything in the whole universe: there's a generality aspect that you feel when you think about how things that appear so different and behave so differently are all run "behind the scenes" by the same organization, the same physical laws. It's an appreciation of the mathematical beauty of nature, of how she works inside; a realization that the phenomena we see result from the complexity of the inner workings between atoms; a feeling of how dramatic and wonderful it is. It's a feeling of awe — of scientific awe — which I felt could be communicated through a drawing to someone who had also had this emotion. It could remind him, for a moment, of this feeling about the glories of the universe." ~Richard P. Feynman