The Fiddler Painting

In 2001 I began painting as a means of dealing with family tragedies. I am self-taught . My favorite mediums are oil , and oil pastels. I love the immediacy of oil pastels because I like to work fast. I was born in Detroit, but moved a lot growing up, to a farm , to Mission Beach in California , to the heartland of industry in Ohio and then to an island in Michigan on Lake St. Clair. My subjects in my work vary as much as my scenery did when I was growing up. I paint in my pre-civil war log cabin home studio which is tucked in the woods , on a mountain top in West Virginia. Biggest influences on my art were the fauvist’s Marc Chagall, Matisse and Derain. I love color in my artworks. My art is in private collections throughout the USA and in several countries throughout Europe.