About the Artist :
“An artist must never be a prisoner.
Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner to himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc.”
~ Henri Matisse
I have spent the past fifty-five years living, learning and creating art here in the San Joaquin Valley. I feel like the time has been well spent. Being a teacher for thirty-three of those years has been a way for me to connect with people, and, hopefully, enrich their lives. I know that they have enriched mine.
It is in the arts, though, that I feel I make my strongest connections. In poetry, with the fifty published pieces and a book of poems published by Scrub Jay Press titled An Old Weather. With a dozen short stories in print and the seven stories selected for Valley Writers Read, on Valley Public Radio. All of this helps me feel a small part of the thriving artistic community here in Fresno and throughout the valley.
The visual arts are my true passion. I work with, and on, whatever is able to best visually convey my dreams. Yes, dreams. Those deep, dark, at times scary, at times exhilarating, but never boring netherworlds each of us spends a third of our lives delving into. I’ve created over 500 art works based solely on dreams. They are expressed on vinyl block, canvas panels, rice paper, canvas and watercolor paper. They are expressed with charcoal, art paper collage, colored pencil, watercolor, ink, Indian ink, oil pastels, enamel, acrylics, and printers ink. The list goes on. The mediums used are dictated by each individual dream.
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