My very first home was in Dutchtown, a gritty, old, German neighborhood on the Saint Louis South Side. Now I live in Alabama, with its lush, green hills and streams. There were other homes in between, but those two places inspire my favorite subjects: city and country.

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Urban scenes offer delights for the artist: sharp lines, architectural details, multiple colors, crowds of people, and deeply shadowed angles.  The city also is like us—it ages and shows wear and tear; there is beauty in its faded colors, wrinkles, chipped paint, and grime.  The forest has a different beauty—a natural palette, filtered light, the soft movement of shadow and sun, a mix of hard and soft edges.  And I can say for certain that, after living for years downwind of the St. Louis breweries, it smells better.  Both subjects are so satisfying and so different that I find myself alternating between them.

 

I'm self-taught, except for a few years of high school art classes. My career would be familiar to many other artists, not so much in its specifics, but in its general direction—from teaching to corporate positions to consulting over a span of many years, all the while with my paints and gear boxed away and hauled from home to home and state to state. With retirement from business, painting has become my full-time passion.

I work only in oils. No other medium seems to have such a satisfying texture and finish. Oil paint just feels right. It smells right. My goal is for a piece to stand out from the wall, to catch your eye and invite you in to explore all its nooks and crannies. I do this with a variety of strategies—fairly saturated colors, lots of information, multiple subjects, strong value contrasts, and interesting vantage points.