"I was born in Baltimore, Maryland and lived there for the first six months. My family moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1981 and I grew up there, on the foothills of the Rockies. As a child, I was never much of an artist, or 'drawer' as we used to say. I didn't draw much. The one picture I remember drawing over and over when I did draw had a boy lying on a rug in front of a fireplace. This boy was drawing a picture of a boy lying on a rug, and so on. I was more interested in football and basketball, and in Nintendo and cartoons. I believe that the Nintendo and cartoons strongly influenced my early imagination and have stuck with me aesthetically ever since.
I became interested in painting and drawing in earnest as a teenager. This is also when I became interested in the theatre and acting. I believe that this is why many of my paintings have a quality of relationship or narrative; of suspended moments. I earned my BFA in painting in San Francisco after also studying in New Orleans. After this period of formal education, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an actor in the entertainment industry. I live in Los Angeles, a terrific place for shadowplay and fantasy.
I am not interested in 'the discourse of contemporary art'. When I go into my studio or participate in art as a viewer, I am interested only in the magic of the object. That is to say: does an object or image transport me? Is it beautiful? I believe very much in art as alchemy. The artist's job, I think, is to translate a known quantity or quality into something that is transcendent or poignant. I am influenced by spirituality, rapture and chaos. Also, I believe in anthropomorphosis. We can only hope to understand the relationship between ourselves and these objects within the context of our own humanity. If the artist and the viewer have due diligence, the art experience can break free of the constraints of that structure to touch something more universal, even momentarily. That is the magic moment, and I believe it is the purpose of why we make and look at art.
My paintings come from my simple desire to create beautiful and poetic images. If the viewer feels the magic and the whimsy in viewing them that I feel making them, I have succeeded. If the viewing experience gives pause to them or, perhaps even sticks with them and makes them think, then other more magical forces are at work. Either way, I sure have a good time making them. I believe that simple enjoyment in the studio and that magic element in the viewing makes the world a better place. Right now, more than ever, that is worth its salt".