I grew up in Southern California in a golden magical time in America. I had the great fortune to live next door to 5 rambunctious boys, and up the hill from a glorious, mysterious swamp. Everyday was an adventure of lush green moss, slippery globs of gelatinous frog eggs, torn pants with scraped and bloodied knees. I know my love of the environment was born in those days navigating through that wondrous swamp. Every summer evening I laid in my bed listening to the chorus of frogs singing from the swamp while the Scottish bagpipes rehearsed at the community center down the hill. My childhood could not have been more idyllic. For those hot days of summer, my parents had the keen intelligence to put in the neighborhoods very first swimming pool, the long hours soaked in chlorine turned my golden curls a curious lime green. Not only did the pool bring a cool turquoise water into my world, it also gave me an amazing strength of control and power over the 5 boys who were my constant companions. I didn’t get to play basketball? Guess who isn’t going to go swimming today? The scales of balance were at play and the boys didn’t like the fact that they were often tipped my way.
Art was always a huge part of my life visiting galleries and museum’s with my Mom, she would drag me out of the pool when there was an important show she wanted me to see. I’d begrudgingly go, wet green hair and all, but somehow I seemed to soak it all up. I have been painting since I can remember, my father built my easels for displaying along the bluffs park every summer’s Art show in Santa Monica. I went to Art Center right out of high school, I thought it would be perfect for me. The only problem was that my drawing teacher kept coming by and snapping my pencils in half because they weren’t sharpened correctly…..I left. I was a part of the revolution of the 60′s, yes I’m still a happy hippy. Those were the best and worst of times. Consciousness was opened, but friends died. Freedom was at an all time high, but the war in Vietnam raged on. Peace and Love was the mantra, and the Beatles met the Maharishi. Osho began giving sannyas in India, and the world flowered. Gone was the perfection of the American dream of the 1950′s, Jimi Hendrix owned a guitar, and women now had “the pill”………… things changed.
I then found Otis Art Institute, hippies, artists, and savants and fit right in. It was an incredible time, and I grew tremendously as a painter then. I took off for Europe, cried in front of “David”, got arrested on an Italian train for counterfeit money ( really hilarious ), and worked in hotels in Athens and Amsterdam. I hitchhiked through the Swiss Alps, and was stranded on a Greek Island 14 miles off the coast of Turkey. Those years shaped two of my grandest life passions…art and travel. I came home eventually, and fell in love.I studied airbrush realism with Jack Reilly, Jack taught me how to be sensitive to color and really see, and I eventually took over the studio, and the students. I learned a lot from them, I taught special effects painters, model makers, fabric designers, they all left a valuable impression on me. I then worked as an “on set” artist in the art dept. for independent feature films. I truly love paint, the smell, feel, texture and surprises that come with it, I just could not live without creating art.
Currently I live and paint daily in Malibu, Ca. When I work big I like to paint in my driveway surrounded by 50 foot trees….it’s Nirvana. I am continuously inspired, and in awe of my paradise. Walking the creek beds and horse trails behind my home inspired my current “Organic Art” series. People call me ” The Organic Artist”, because of the feel of my work. I’m infatuated by the forms, colors, and textures of hidden worlds. My “organiks” are reflections of the often strikingly familiar abstractions we see in nature, and their relationship with time and layering. To me, my paintings are evidence of intuition and the palpable existence of it. I convey the softly yielding, yet erratic natural contortions I see, with the serene, conscious, and reactive response nature provides us. Macro worlds tucked just below the surface, interplay when multi-layered to create an amazing environmental dance. Nature provides us a visual history with sensuous forms, decay, and birth in a constant evolution of imagery tangled with time. For me, it is magical and brings me back to my childhood days spent in the swamp. I am continually inspired by a momentary glimpse of our evolving earth.
Art was always a huge part of my life visiting galleries and museum’s with my Mom, she would drag me out of the pool when there was an important show she wanted me to see. I’d begrudgingly go, wet green hair and all, but somehow I seemed to soak it all up. I have been painting since I can remember, my father built my easels for displaying along the bluffs park every summer’s Art show in Santa Monica. I went to Art Center right out of high school, I thought it would be perfect for me. The only problem was that my drawing teacher kept coming by and snapping my pencils in half because they weren’t sharpened correctly…..I left. I was a part of the revolution of the 60′s, yes I’m still a happy hippy. Those were the best and worst of times. Consciousness was opened, but friends died. Freedom was at an all time high, but the war in Vietnam raged on. Peace and Love was the mantra, and the Beatles met the Maharishi. Osho began giving sannyas in India, and the world flowered. Gone was the perfection of the American dream of the 1950′s, Jimi Hendrix owned a guitar, and women now had “the pill”………… things changed.
I then found Otis Art Institute, hippies, artists, and savants and fit right in. It was an incredible time, and I grew tremendously as a painter then. I took off for Europe, cried in front of “David”, got arrested on an Italian train for counterfeit money ( really hilarious ), and worked in hotels in Athens and Amsterdam. I hitchhiked through the Swiss Alps, and was stranded on a Greek Island 14 miles off the coast of Turkey. Those years shaped two of my grandest life passions…art and travel. I came home eventually, and fell in love.I studied airbrush realism with Jack Reilly, Jack taught me how to be sensitive to color and really see, and I eventually took over the studio, and the students. I learned a lot from them, I taught special effects painters, model makers, fabric designers, they all left a valuable impression on me. I then worked as an “on set” artist in the art dept. for independent feature films. I truly love paint, the smell, feel, texture and surprises that come with it, I just could not live without creating art.
Currently I live and paint daily in Malibu, Ca. When I work big I like to paint in my driveway surrounded by 50 foot trees….it’s Nirvana. I am continuously inspired, and in awe of my paradise. Walking the creek beds and horse trails behind my home inspired my current “Organic Art” series. People call me ” The Organic Artist”, because of the feel of my work. I’m infatuated by the forms, colors, and textures of hidden worlds. My “organiks” are reflections of the often strikingly familiar abstractions we see in nature, and their relationship with time and layering. To me, my paintings are evidence of intuition and the palpable existence of it. I convey the softly yielding, yet erratic natural contortions I see, with the serene, conscious, and reactive response nature provides us. Macro worlds tucked just below the surface, interplay when multi-layered to create an amazing environmental dance. Nature provides us a visual history with sensuous forms, decay, and birth in a constant evolution of imagery tangled with time. For me, it is magical and brings me back to my childhood days spent in the swamp. I am continually inspired by a momentary glimpse of our evolving earth.
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