About

Creating Art is the most sincere human endeavor. It allows one to reach deep into oneself and refine who they are within their cultural environment. Art is creation and creation is the essence of nature. Nature is my external source of inspiration. The beauty of procreation and the savagery of consumption is a polar extreme in nature. These contrary concepts are inextricably bound together and form the fundamental relationships and rivalries between organisms. The greatest source of my internal artistic inspiration is the subconscious. My hidden, innermost, latent energy reifies apparitions and archetypes. The subconscious doesn't allow choice. It is automatic. Thereafter, my conscious struggles to make these images more definable for the viewer. I think choices in the process of art occur before or after the true indefinable moment of art. Art is that inexplicable moment of doubt, indefiniteness, enigma, and obscurity that reveals itself to someone transcribing it to share with others.

I seek to create artwork that attracts and repeals simultaneously. Something that draws a person in, but keeps them unnerved. This parallels the polarity of nature. Beauty juxtaposed with savagery. I seek artists who combine oppositions to create emotionally stirring works. These works create anxiety or tension, but simultaneously arouse feelings of pleasure.

A project is going well when I lose awareness of everything around me. Something in nature has touched me and it has melded with me as the artwork emerges. I often don't know what I'm doing, I'm just doing it and something is radiating within. I know the piece is finished when I return to it and it instantly recreates that sensation without further action. I also know that I won't feel it again and can only hope it will happen within another.

Art, in whatever media, is something that changes me. I am not the same person I was before I experienced it. This is an open definition. Anyone can decide what art is for themselves by what alters their thoughts, feelings, being . . .

Artist Bio

My adult life began in college in Madison, Wisconsin where I was exposed to a myriad of new perspectives about society. I realized that my upbringing hadn't provided me with an accurate view of reality. I left school but remained in the university environment and developed my skills in electronic music, my first true art form. I remained content for almost a decade, but a call for a fresh medium emerged. Visual art took over.

I returned to school to study the ancient art of the indigenous cultures in the Americas. Formally, I did this in the Anthropology department at the University of California at Berkeley. Narrowing my focus on the ancient Maya led me to Tulane University where I completed my Masters degree. Despite the wonders of studying other people's art, I learned more about myself. It was a long road to my decision, but writing about art isn't in my heart. Making art is.

This decision occurred in the middle of the dotcom boom and going with the flow I did computer art but soon felt disassociated from it. It is virtual and not tactile enough. I began taking basic art classes at local community colleges and settled in on painting for a while. My West Oakland environment presented me with other media and my continual desire for something new resulted in creating metal sculpture. This led me to The Crucible. I was home.

The Crucible is a non-profit industrial art school in West Oakland. I began taking glass casting and fusing classes in the winter of 2010/2011, then expanded my interests to glass cold-working, and painting on glass. Despite the long history of glass art, I am mesmerized by the incredible artwork of today's glass artists. The potential seems limitless. I left my office job in August 2011 to focus exclusively on making art, meeting artists and seeing as much art as time and finance permit. The Crucible asked if I would be interested in curating their art shows and I accepted the position. Most recently, I have begun experimenting new means by which to unite ceramics and glass.