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My art has been influenced by many people. I am fortunate to have been born to gifted parents- my father and mother were both powerful creators. My great aunt Jean Webb was a WPA artist and art educator. Their homes were filled with color, art, and craft.
Once I hit college, I was fortunate to have been taught all about color by Janet Taylor, who taught weaving at Kent State University. She is a brilliant colorist. I didn't discover illustration until I was in my last year at KSU, so I had to wait until a fateful day in 1983 to meet my next mentor. Barbara Carr came into my life like a typhoon- she was the leader of a sketching tour I took to Japan and Hong Kong- and a truly inspiring drawing teacher.
I met Barbara while on holiday from a job doing comps and storyboards for advertising agencies, a job that honed my rendering skills and taught me how to work quickly and (relatively) efficiently. I stayed at that far redoubt of illustration for over 20 years, the last 15 of them as a freelancer. Working with permanent markers all those years also left me with a slight tremor but there you are...
After the advertising industry and I parted company, my work has been influenced by artists as diverse as Leo & Diane Dillon, Eyvind Earle-lead background artist on Disney's "Sleeping Beauty", Stanley Spencer ("Cookham",) Edward Bawden and of course, the Bloomsbury artists.
In 2000, as the result of a purely happenstance encounter, I was asked to contribute a paper doll to a book project. This was a total departure from my style at the time: friskets, stencils, sponges, drybrush and acrylics- lots of flat, colorful mosaic-like pattern. Figuring it was a one-off project I tried my hand at this new style and fell head-over-heels in love with it. The result has been characterized as "paper-dolls with deep personal issues," I consider it my heart's work. I am now a committed bricoleur (a worker in bricolage: the artful use of what's at hand)- my work space seems more like Kaspar's magic box from "Amahl and the Night Visitors" than a typical art studio now but I have never been happier doing my work nor working so close to the bone on some gallery pieces.
In 2001, I was struck by a creative lightning bolt and began work on The Word Project; Odd & Obscure Words- Illustrated. The Word Project combines my love of language with my paper-dolls, bringing back to life words that have fallen out of use in modern times. The WP is at over 100 pieces and still expanding.
In 2010, I realized a long-held dream and self-published The Word Project. To learn more about the book, and to purchase a copy for yourself, go to Amazon.
"My Dark Materials:"
- illustration board
- cheap-o homogenized acrylic paints
- paraffin candle
- buttons & waxed linen thread
- teeny grommets & plastic-coated wire
- seed beads make lovely eyes or other anatomical bits
- sometimes feathers and other exotica
I happily identify myself as a Stuckist and fully support the Remodernist manifesto. Throughout my life, my rebellion has taken the form of a withdrawal into art and the spiritualism of the natural world; I am glad to find a community of artists with similar enthusiasms.
For one weekend every August, I, and several dozen other Saugerties Artists, open our studios for our annual Studio Tour, if you can't come to our studios, visit us on the web.
To watch a video of me talking about my work and demonstrating some of my techniques (in my former studio-sigh), go here.
Lists of clients, galleries, shows and awards, as well as my Artist's Statement, are on my bio page.
Another important influence on my professional life has been my membership in, and involvement with, the Graphic Artists Guild. If you are a creator of visual art, I urge you to join us to work together to make our collective artistic lives better.
I have also started to branch out into other fields. You can hear me and my "partners in crime," Bill Westwood and Paul Rapp, Esq., answer caller questions on copyright on WAMC's VoxPop. You can listen over the web and call in with your questions.
But enough of this chit-chat, you want to see some art; so click here:
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