"Chains" Drawing

An American realist artist (b. 1959) specializing in works on paper.

All my life I have been fortunate to live with musicians. Music and what I listen to while I paint have a significant power over my artistic process, in what inspires me, in the emotions evoked and incorporated into a piece, and is even reflected in the popular song titles of the finished works.

I choose to depict contemporary places and people, but my goal is to use skill and imagination to produce works that portray the more enduring qualities of the world and of the human condition.

The White Album, my most recent work, is literally a labor of love, twenty years in the making. A quirky "photo-realism" album of my three teenagers, it is foremost a portrait of adolescence. My youngest son is just entering his turbulent teens; middle-child daughter a promising artist at 16-going-on-26; the eldest son, an adult of 19, is a freshman living at Kent State University, Ohio.

I was on the threshold of my own teen years when the Beatles were the soundtrack for the hippy era. This work draws parallels between then and now, and highlights the universal, eternal character of coming of age. I have attempted to explore the similarities of each generation, despite contemporary sensibilities and recent advances in technology.

A fellow artist recently noted, "We paint to deal with life." These candid "snapshots" are one way I've found to cope with the process of letting go that all parents must make. They document my children's progress during this transitional time in their lives. Thanks to them, I am still learning.