A Distant Land Artwork

Born in 1965, I lived outside of the steel mills of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, where in my younger years I started my interest in art. My Mother was a kind, Nurturing Mother who placed the pencil in my hand at the age of 2, I have drawn and painted ever since. Before my 4th birthday my Father found work in Elkhart Indiana, so we moved from Pennsylvania to Indiana to start a new life together as a Family. At the time there was my Mother, Father, my little brother and I. Since then 2 more siblings were added to our Family to make 6. When I turned 11 years of age I got involved with 8 other Artist in the area , we encouraged each other and push each other in our art, some danced, sang, wrote and spoke in many languages and then there was me who drew and painted the landscape and the people in it. When I enter the 10th grade I was encouraged by some of my Teachers to attend the night classes they were teaching that offered drawing and painting lessons at the High School and also at IUSB. So my Mother signed me up for 2 reasons, 1 the Professors were giving private lessons at the college level and 2 it got me off the streets of Elkhart. I did not have much aptitude to sit still in a large class room setting. When I graduated high school I started a job in a hospital as a cook, I thought it would be a creative outlet. I still kept up with my drawing, painting and working at the hospital. Then On December 31, 1987 I just got home and my Mother sat me down to let me know that Jamie had been killed. She was one of my Artist Friends from my childhood who was working on her 4th Language, she was only 17 years of age, I stop drawing and painting. Then in the summer of 2011 I ran into one of the professors at a coffee house and she encouraged me back into the arts, so slowly I pick up my pencil and painted may way back, Since then I have been involved in regionals at the Midwest Museum of American Art every September for the past 6 years. In 2019 I flew to France to learn the French Culture, language, draw and paint, which gave me more inspiration for my biggest collection thus far. On October 3,2020 I moved to Chicago to full fill my Passion in the Arts. 'To be good at anything ,You have to let go of your greatness, To see the good in everything' Johnny W Thompson Jr.