Not really the simplest question, but I suppose it’s a fair one.
Let’s keep it simple:
I was born in Butzbach, Germany. My Dad was a lifer in the Army. My Mom was a nurse. I’ve lived on military bases all over the world. I had a fairly passionate affair with comic books as a kid and managed to get exposed to all sorts of artwork in all sorts of different countries. Through high school I took every technical drawing course and art course that was offered. I sold my first painting in 1972 and somewhere in there decided that I was going to be an “artist“.
In high school and for several years afterwards, I worked at making “Comix“. I did graphics for several different companies while working at typical day jobs… mechanic, machinist, construction, truck driver, janitor… you can pretty much name it. I worked at a carnival for a few weeks, drove a cab, even rode the back of a garbage truck for a few months.
I did design work for a company that built custom kitchens for a year or so. This led me to going to school for architecture. I did not like architecture. At the time, folk were still using triangles and t-squares and drawing individual bricks by hand. I do not like drawing individual bricks by hand. Anyway… I decided to take the leap and go to school for painting at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. School was lovely… one of the best times of my life. It was the early eighties. It seemed like there was a lot of positive energy in the world.
After school, I made a living teaching private courses and doing commissions. My first gallery representation was through New Arts Gallery in Saint Louis. Eventually, I moved to Chicago by way of Springfield, Illinois. Chicago has a very large art market. I worked a few day jobs in the first few years I was there but eventually managed to work a lot of freelance and to do quite a few shows in local galleries, alternative spaces and so on… I’ve done some major shows… I’ve done a lot of pop-ups in people’s living rooms, shown in office buildings, libraries, coffee shops and so on. I’ve organized several artist’s groups and been a member of several more.
Most of what I’ve shown has been paintings… oils, watercolors, airbrush stuff… I have done a few photo shows as well as shown digital artwork.
I did go back to school to learn computer graphics, web design and so on… I did photo restorations for a few years… graphic design, cut video, etc…
20 years later, due to the fact that I wanted my kids to grow up in a more rural setting as well as my Mother’s failing health and a need to have more trees in my life, I moved back to Central Illinois. These days I show locally and have a page on Artnet. My work’s still inspired by Comix as well as the Surrealists and Abstract Expressionists. Now that the kids are a bit older…
I’m a painter. I paint, among other things.
Studio Time 