I have lived my life as an artist, expressing myself primarily through the visual arts of painting, drawing, sculpture, jewelry design and photography.  I also play the violin and treat all the things I do--massage therapy, weight training, yoga and meditation--as integral to my being an artist.

 

I have had a lifelong love affair with the human body and portraiture is a natural outgrowth of this. My understanding of human anatomy has been honed through years of doing massage, yoga and body building. Through meditation, I have cultivated an intuitive sense that has proven vital in capturing the essence of my subjects. In my recent work, I have adopted colored pencil as my preferred medium for depicting the required detail to represent that essence.

 

I seek to capture the quirkiness I observe that humans display especially when in a group.  We tend often, both consciously and unconsciously, to mimic one another.  Like the caricaturist, but not in a mocking way, I focus the spotlight on this group behavior that is both amusing and touching.

 

As meditative and creative practice, I allow my inner self total control over what I do and observe, setting aside judgment and accepting the outcome.  These works often serve to inform my more conscious creative efforts.

 

I use photography to capture and record in a visual way an emotional response to something in my environment.  Some of these images feel best left in a photographic state, while others serve as subject matter for my paintings, and still others are used as reference material in my portraits.