Recording my visual experience with paint is my inspiration for painting. Trying to record the way light moves across a form has never stopped fascinating me. For me, each painting is a visual account of the image in nature.
Having been raised in the southwest, I am a regional painter. Painting the light of the desert is a unique challenge because it is almost unfiltered by the atmosphere and the value and intensity of colors change from brilliant to “bleached out” in a remarkably short time. Painting on location in the desert, I learned I had to transcribe my instinctual reactions to the landscape quickly.
For a location artist, there are other difficulties, in addition to actually trying to create a painting. There is the squandered time assembling and disassembling the portable easel, palette, shade umbrella, and other necessities. There’s the ongoing battle of the elements of nature: the bitter cold, or the heat that brings the biting bugs that make concentration almost impossible. There are winds that can disassemble and scatter your equipment with a single gust. And, when painting in populous areas, there are the onlookers who are understandably curious and feel compelled to make conversation.
After years of combating these distractions, I had a custom-built mobile studio constructed. Now, the time between inspiration and putting a brush to canvas is minimal. The mobile studio is a tall camper shell fully stocked with the same materials and supplies as my Santa Fe studio. There are three windows at eye level that open outwards and allow me to view the landscape without the obstruction of a dirty window or a window screen. For extended painting trips, the studio doubles as a camper with a collapsible bed, a camping stove, and icebox.
I was raised in southern Arizona, and after serving in the United States Marine Corps, attended Milan School of Art in Tucson, Arizona, studying commercial art and painting. Upon graduation, I moved to Phoenix to work as a corporate and freelance commercial artist. To further my art career, I earned a bachelor’s degree in Art Education from Arizona State University in Phoenix and then taught art in the public schools and local colleges in northern Arizona. In 1975, I moved back to southern Arizona where I received a master’s degree in Painting from the University of Arizona. In 1990, I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico where I began painting full time. I have since come full circle back to Tucson where I continue to paint the landscapes of the southwest in addition to still life and figure painting.
Education
1985 MFA in Painting, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
1971 BA in Art Education, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
1965 Milan School of Art, Tucson, AZ
Publications
2000-2001 Art Life – Arizona Fall, Volume 14
1999 Focus Santa Fe Magazine September, “The More You Look, the More You See”
1995 Artist de Santa Fe Calendar
1986 American Artist Magazine August, “The Watercolor Page,” (Cover)
1974 Arizona Daily Star Newspaper November 17, 1974
Selected Shows
2015 Tucson Desert Art Museum, Tucson, AZ, Four Person Show
2010 Mountain Oyster Show, Tucson, AZ
2000 Rosequist Gallery, Tucson, AZ, One Person Show
1999 Rosequist Gallery, Tucson, AZ, One Person Show
1998 Pippen Museum, Prescott, AZ, “Painters of the Desert” Show
1998 Mountain Oyster Show, Tucson, AZ
1997 Albuquerque Museum of Art, Albuquerque, NM, Miniatures Show
1997 Mountain Oyster Show, Tucson, AZ
1997 Rosequist Gallery, Tucson, AZ, One Person Miniatures Show
1997 Gateway Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
1991 Christine’s at La Fonda, Santa Fe, NM, One Person Show
1985 University of Arizona Rotunda Gallery, Tucson, AZ, One Person Show
1983 Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ, Third Arizona Biannual
1973 Phoenix Museum of Art, Phoenix, AZ, Third Arizona Watercolor and Graphic Biannual