Exhibition
Nocturnes, Riversea Gallery, Astoria, OR
Medley: Scholarship Benefit Show, Royal Nebuker Gallery, Astoria, OR
50 Years to Nowhere, Riversea Gallery, Astoria, OR
Expressions West - Juried Exhibit, Coos Bay Art Museum, Coos Bay, OR
Cascade AIDS Project Art Auction, Portland, OR
Stories from the Edge, RiverSea Gallery, Astoria, OR
From a Bare Hand – Solo Show, RiverSea Gallery, Astoria, OR
Pastel Society of the West Coast 18th International Exhibition, San Luis Obispo, CA
From Paris to Willapa – Group show with Andrew Pate and Noel Thomas, Astoria, OR
Juried Exhibit, Chanute Art Gallery, Chanute, KS
Biennial National Small Oil Painting Exhibition, Wichita Center for the Arts, Wichita, KS
Group Exhibition, Anchorage Federal Building, Anchorage, Alaska
Artist’s Statement
Everyone wears glasses. Think of them as corrective lenses, filtering meaning for each of us from an objective world. What we think, we see. My art is what I think I see.
Fortunately for me our human experiences vary widely, but not so much so I can’t reach anyone with my painted vision. There is a universal human perception developed by millennia of looking at the horizon and each other. This is why abstraction is a powerful tool. My painting can suggest what I think is meaningful from a place and time, and you can develop your view from personal memories and hopes.
“There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more.”
Biography
As a child I lived on a state park in rural New Jersey, where my father was a ranger. Later our family had a home in Alaska’s Matanuska Valley, and later still (after a stint living in a ‘77 Corolla), Kodiak Island. It came as a surprise to me when I waded into my father’s waters and took a park ranger job after college, first in the southern plains of the US, and later for 16 years on the Washington Coast. I developed a robust studio practice after moving to the PNW in 2003, and began routinely showing my paintings and pastels. Working as a ranger I was, as you might expect, outdoors often. I appreciate the value we place in wild places, and natural and cultural history. Painting is the best way I’ve found to express that gratitude and wonder.
In 2019, I chose to pivot from management and protection of natural resources to science education. Currently, I teach high school courses in geosciences and natural resource management. The 3-month summer recess from the academic year provides for both ample studio time, and long adventures exploring the Pacific Northwest.
