ARTIST’S STATEMENT
&
ARTIST’S BIO

About the Artist

Born in 1956, I have lived throughout the Southeast and Midwest. My father, a historian, and my mother, a native of England and Ireland, encouraged my early curiosity about culture and nature as well as a love of travel.

For the past nine years I lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, a lovely university town nestled between the Southwestern and Blue Ridge ranges. But earlier this past summer, my wife and I moved just across the Blue Ridge. It is a real joy that I regularly get to explore both the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge and the Shenandoah Valley.

Before moving to Virginia in the fall of 2000, my daughter Kate and I lived in the lush upper coastal plain of eastern North Carolina. I had made our home in and around the rural town of Wilson, located about an hour east of the Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill (the Triangle) area.

Besides making art and teaching, I take an avid interest in walking through old neighborhoods and the countryside. I really enjoy bird watching, reading, and cooking. As a parent, I had a bit less time than I would like for bike riding, playing chess, attending concerts and plays, and community service projects. Now, as my daughter and my stepson are both college students, some of those are finding their way back into my life.

Professional and Community Service

I have more than 30 years of community and academic experience in the arts. Until recently I served as a professor, teaching art Art (design, drawing, painting, and art history) at Piedmont Virginia Community College. As part of my professional activities I have curated exhibitions of contemporary works. The two most recent exhibitions, one titled Virginia Paper, was a statewide show dedicated to a survey of new art being made on and of paper, and the other a show of contemporary aqueous media.

As an artist I am always creating new work and working at getting exhibitions. In previous years I served as a judge for the Raleigh (NC) Art commission and on the Board of the Arts Council of Wilson (also in NC). For the past few years I have also served as a judge for the College Board’s national review of AP Art Portfolios and as Lead Judge for the NC Governor’s Schools Art program.

About My Art Work

Most of my work is in watercolor or includes watercolor with other material. During the past thirty years I have approached watercolor from many directions, I have always done so with a passion for color and design.

As an artist, I work in wide variety of methods including painting, printmaking, and book arts. I have also experimented with environmental installation and conceptual/performance pieces. Through the years I have been working on large scaled drawings on mylar and small assemblages that reflect my interest in both natural history and family history. But most of my work is on paper. The visual content, the subject of my drawings and paintings, comes from combining at least two visual ideas. The first is the contemplative exploration of nature (I suspect that our/my relationship with the natural world is far more profound than I usually realize). The second part of my subject is the active exploration of visual language … the organization and composition of the painting.

Recent Exhibitions, Awards, and Honors

Within the past few years I had two pieces placed in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Center of Rocky Mount (NC) and Blue Ridge Community College. Early in 2009 I had two solo exhibition of my work on display, one, an exhibition of mixed aqueous paintings on panels (Interrupted Visions, Small Wonders) at Angelo and the other (Natural Family History) in the main gallery at McGuffey. In recent years I received four awards based on my work (Adirondacks National, NC Watercolor Society, and two from the North Carolina Arts Council).

Professional Background

I began my serious study of art in Wichita, Kansas in adult-professional classes with Betty Dickerson. I received my B.F.A. in Art from Valdosta State University (Valdosta, GA) and later completed an M.F.A. in Painting at East Carolina University (Greenville NC).

I taught my first painting and art history courses in 1979 and have been teaching continuously as a college art professor since 1985. Over the years I have conducted courses in drawing, watercolor, oil painting, design, and art history. While I have left full time college teaching, I have been asked to teach courses for several regional universities and colleges and will joyfully do so on occasion.

I have also taught workshops, classes or conducted residencies for the following institutions: Barton College, North Carolina Wesleyan College-Raleigh, Johnston Community College, Southeastern Community College, Wilson Technical Community College, Wayne Community College, Shenandoah Valley Art Center, Uptown Gallery(Richmond VA), Rocky Mount Fine Arts Center, Arts Council of Wilson, Onslow County Arts Council, Onslow County Public Schools, and Seymour Johnson Arts Center.