Bio
I was born in Phoenix Arizona in 1966. My father was from Brooklyn New York and my mother was from a small farm in Kansas. They met at school in Texas and choose to move to the Southwest for its job opportunities for my dad, and for the climate for my mom who was a victim of the polio virus and would have difficulties maneuvering in an area where it snowed with her back and leg brace.
My childhood was spent in shorts, selling junk I made in front of our house, drawing spaceships, creating clubs I would coerce my friends to join, and melting crayons on the sidewalk. We also had a German shepherd named Gretel who would get car sick, but was the best dog in the world. When I was about six my favorite activity (to my parents dismay) was letting her drag me across the lawn by my shoes. From the get go, I was always drawing characters (perhaps you saw some of my work in Highlights), and creating sculptures, recycling things my parents attempted to throw away. My mother was especially encouraging and faithful in the grocery store to buy me drawing pads and various art materials in the school supply aisle of Lucky’s Supermarket. I also remember fondly taking summer classes at the Phoenix Art Museum and sitting in front of Baroque portraits and doing versions of them in oil pastel.
High school was spent avoiding getting beaten up, avoiding home, and enjoying the benefits of pretending to be other people. I went to college at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth for a year, and then finished my degree in studio art at Biola University in the Los Angeles area. Out of college I worked as a grade school art teacher in Carson, California and was also the assistant curator for the Los Angeles’ city art collection, as well as was the assistant curator for three other galleries that the city ran. Soon after I got into grad school to get my MFA at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. Here I felt my grandparents farming blood blossom. I relished in the rolling lentil and wheat fields and small town environment of eastern Washington. After grad school I worked in Seattle, heading up art programs for the Boy’s and Girl’s Club in the city of Redmond, and also speaking to irate shoppers as a customer service phone agent for the Eddie Bauer clothing company. In 1993 I was hired by Grand Canyon University in Phoenix as their art department chair, gallery curator, and art professor. I was there for nine years. In July of 2003, I moved back to the Northwest to take a position within the art faculty at George Fox University in Newberg Oregon. I love the Northwest, live in community and walk to work.
I have had over twenty solo exhibitions from Washington D.C. to Southern California, and have participated in over fifty invitational, juried, and group exhibitions. Art for me is an integral part of the human experience and continues to be a place to be authentic, be truthful, and share hope, and the irony and blessings of life in all its beauty and mess.
