About

I was born in Colorado Springs in 1955. My Father was in the United States Air Force and because of his job, I spent my early youth in Europe. While living in Paris, I was enrolled in my first art class under the instruction of Siegfried Hahn. He introduced me to the magic of making art. In High School, I had an instructor who strongly encouraged me to pursue an art career. I spent a couple of years going to Santa Barbara College for academic studies and the prerequisite classes in Art History. I then attended and graduated from Art Center College of Design with a BFA.

After college I began experimenting with ephemeral art in the desert. In the first desert experiment I placed fifty candles into the sand every five feet in a straight line. This line of light stretch ing across the desert separated one side from the other. What I found interesting about it is the effect it had on a person as they crossed that imaginary line. It was a real fee ling of transition from one area to another. This threshold experience became an essential part of my work. The next desert experiments involved creating ephemeral walls out of fire using home-made napalm. That was followed by another project that included underground water containers planted in a perfect circle to create vegetation that would later be perceived as an enclosed space.

The next stage of desert experiments included various temporary installations, including a 15-foot Pyramid and a full size, 3-dimensional line drawing of a house made of square steel tubing entitled House Icon. I also used four full-size doors to articulate a twenty-toot square space in Death Valley entitled Threshold. These experiences have led to many pieces that require the viewer to be an active participant. The critical meaning to these pieces is how the human mind interacts and fills in the blanks. Any human that approaches the House Icon, for instance , always walks through the "door". This is wha t makes all art a uniquely human experience.

After the desert experiments, I brought the theoretical approach of space into the studio with my Rectangles and Squares series. The paintings articulate a two-dimensional space and the artwork is completely controlled within the limits of the canvas. In order to do this, I built a structure that would hold the models and eliminate perspective. I also had to change the way I normally paint. To insure the concept was clear, I painted these pieces in a very straight-forward manner. I found it interest ing how differently various viewers perceived these pieces. I realized that art can be experienced through a filter of the viewers' personal experience and that the artist has very little control over that.

My 2010 public art sculpture Intersecting Cubes installed in the Palm Springs design district is an 18' steel sculpture that appears to have two cubes suspended in the air. The Embedded Cubes series fan with in the same body of work from that period. These aluminum sculptures of various sizes and colors are not finished until the viewer completes them in their mind.

Following that, I created The Man project which is a full-size sculpture or a figure created in the mind of the viewer using just clothing. This series includes mixed media, bronze, and photography. I took this sculpture around the United Stales and photographed The Man in different locations.

Currently, I am working on The Seated Portraits. This series is a natural step in the exploration of ideas from The Man. The Man is an avatar for the viewers' concept of a man. The seated portraits are actual people that sat for them.

Additionally, I have created other work that continues to build upon the purpose of my art, requiring the viewer to participate.and envision the space, identity, and dimension of the work. These projects include the 2D Cube, Silhouettes, and the Two-Inch Gap, a diptych that is designed to be hung in such a way as to appear as one single canvas.

My work continues to explore gestalt space that interacts with the viewer.