About the Artist
I admit it. I am among the fortunate.
Not everyone gets to go home.
The early years as a student at New York’s High School of Music & Art, with scholarships at Greenwich House Pottery, awards in competitions and the opportunity to exhibit in New York city, through my graduation from Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles during the contemporary alternative art scene of the 1960’s my focus was always quite clear.
In College while married and with a child on the way at graduation, it was clear that I needed to provide and found work at one of two premier design studios in Los Angeles. I then opened my own studio, and proceeded to create companies by transforming those creative juices to compete in the world of commerce. In one way or another, creativity would continue to drive my life’s work. From early childhood, through art schools and in the world of commerce creativity has been a constant.
Now, as a grandfather of 9 and the freedom to devote my efforts to what I truly love, I’m back ‘home’. With the inspiration and energy generated by years of straining to be free to create in the language of my youth I am committed with the maturity that only life experiences can engender. I’m in the world so familiar to me while still having the luxury to enjoy a family life. I am blessed. How cool is it to have your college age grandkids ask you for a painting for their dorm room!
Artist’s Statement
Yes you can go home.
My return to the canvas has been a long time coming, and returning home came with some trepidation that expired the moment I picked up the brush. I was transported back a half a century in an instant. At that moment I was 50 years younger. Hungry to pursue the life I had studied, prepared for, dreamed of, and kept close to my soul.
Returning to the canvas was like breathing fresh air – clean – uncontaminated by time – pure energy…being released from the genie bottle.
The restrictions are gone – what flows does so without detour or constraints – no judgment except that which is inherent – all positively forward moving kinetic forces like a restless energy that has been let out of the bottle. There are those times when the paint is pushing me around in an exhilarating journey through unconfined space.
While painting – creating – I’m free of constriction; my creative action is like breaking free from a silent sanctuary – no restraining force limiting my energy.
Explaining what I do is like asking me why – or how – I breathe – it just is.
Clearly, my particular art is a metaphoric. Sights, sounds, aromas, and images that invade my subconscious inspire me. I’m not always particularly conscious of the influence. It’s a primal kind of response. I’m not trying to do something particular in that I can measure. I start off in a direction and never force through it. A spiritual, semiconscious force guides me. Once the process starts, it takes over as a living, breathing, loving, crying, laughing, exciting, caring, and caressing at times rhythm. It’s like the brush and the palette knife, the canvas and the space are playing a symphony and I may be the conductor, or possibly the audience or the conduit through which the voice passes.
Taking chances – not worried about being wrong – just letting go of the outcome, of that which might be…. whatever it is, is a result of limitless energy that is, without preconceived perfection or expectation, flowing from my emotions. Creativity is not in itself beautiful. For me a beauty, a rhythm, a sense that I’m being guided is a required participle of what I do. I’m creating images that make the mind sway, dance, tap…something happens that pleases, excites, rewards in positive and beautiful way and maybe even calms you…or maybe exhausts you. More emotion than judgment…