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The creative act has always been a part of my life. I enjoy working with my hands, and seeing my thoughts and ideas take shape in a drawing, painting, or repair project in my home. Working with any tools, whether hammer and saw, or pencil and sharpener, can be considered a creative act.
Because I like to work with the simple objects that surround me, still life painting seemed to be a natural undertaking, although I didn’t take to it right away. I found it difficult to arrange objects in a manner typical of classic still life painting, prompting me to seek out alternative, less traditional ways to set up still life objects. I also enjoy painting flowers, and even venture into the occasional landscape. I find these subjects fascinating because they are the common, everyday things that surround us. They can hold so much beauty, yet we often take them for granted.
I was encouraged to develop my artistic talents from an early age. Throughout high school, academics took a back seat to drawing and painting, and it seemed as though art would play a major part in my future.
College found me pursuing other avenues, and it wasn't until I was thirty years old that I entered art school. While studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, I was fortunate enough to get a work study job in the photography studios of the Museum of Fine Arts. There, I had access to some of the world's great art on a daily basis.
The work study job turned into a twenty year career as a museum photographer, and the best art education one could ever receive. The studios were always filled with great works of art waiting to be photographed. Each piece was approached with a great deal of thought and study, which not only resulted in a faithful representation of the original, but some level of knowledge about the artwork that I didn't have previously.
After taking early retirement from the museum in 2004, I thought that I would begin doing some fine art photography, but soon found myself thinking about drawing, and painting. It wasn't long before I started drawing again, first with graphite, and then with colored pencil.
Taking advantage of the fact that colored pencils allow a lot of flexibility and control, I use multiple layers of pigment applied to a rough-surfaced board in order to build rich color while including a great deal of detail in my art. The work is then varnished using a process that I developed myself. When varnished, it has the added benefit of not requiring glass, making it much more accessible to the viewer. In fact, the work looks more like a painting than a drawing.
Artist Statement
Galleries Showing My Work
