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What is great art? For me, the answer to that question wasn’t easy. I started my education in science, and ended it in art.
One year I was up to my elbows in calculus, bent over a computer crunching computer programming language, and the next I was
on the path to making a living as a painter. Surprised? Well, probably not as much as I was.
Somewhere along the way, I discovered art that really turned me on, and I’ve been painting ever since.
My first love was the paintings of the British classicists and romantics of Victorian England.
From the walls of London museums, paintings by John Everett Millais, William Waterhouse, Frederick Leighton,
and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema fired emotional bullets at me that would forever leave their mark on my mind and soul.
At that moment, I knew the game was up. I had to become a painter. Science, though I loved it, went right out the window.
Having spent my childhood in the mountains, backpacking, fishing, camping, and chasing butterflies with nets made from
hanger wire and old broom handles, it seemed appropriate that I'd end up in a profession that requires the close, hands-on
scrutiny of the world around me, and not the theoretical, abstract musings of what I'd originally chosen to study in college.
My art bears the indelible stamp of that same kid whose parents had to shake him out of a tree to get him to come inside
for dinner each evening. I guess I'm still wandering through those trees and floating down the lazy river of life, as
curious and fascinated as ever by the same things that kept my attention as a child.
My techniques are self-taught, based upon my study of the old masters.
I have a 4 year degree in art history and have attended lecture courses at Cambridge University, England,
on art conservation and archival painting technique.
I'm currently represented in California and Utah, and am always looking for more galleries that are appropriate for my art.
I’m co-founder of the Utah-based Mountain States Archaeology firm, where I sometimes took breaks from the
studio to go into the field with
archaeology crews to make illustrations of a variety of artifacts and archaeological sites.
I currently make my living as a professional oil painter in Austin, Texas,
and sell my work primarily out of San Francisco, California, and by direct commission. I am the former design editor for Utah
Archaeology magazine and am a participating artist in The Artist's Studio--
an online educational art program sponsored by Quent Cordair Fine Art--where I instruct on the methods of traditional oil
painting technique.
Please visit the
Contact Page for more information about commissions, sales, shows or appearances.
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