About the Artist

Painting as I do it  is showing things you don't ordinarily see.  

Things there, but hidden.  Or if in plain sight, unobserved.   Think of the structure of a bird's feathers.  Or the nuances of folds of draped silk.  Or a private moment between mother and child.  The limitations of time, access and attention make not seeing these a good bet.  Add in the limitations of the human sensory machine and we're getting close to a sure thing.  

Then, and this is obvious,  things unseen  because they're not there any longer.  The past.  History.  Visually, these might be a sleek clipper ship with its billowing sails and hundreds of miles of rigging, or a city as it once was.  These become real again in their careful and conscious reconstruction.  The goal is to weave in a sense of reality, a sense of  "I feel this, I get it"-- a layer on top of what's yielded by a contemporary photo or engraving . 

Or things hidden until they're imagined.  That's the goal of my Stono Madonna series of imagined Gullah mythology.  The madonnas become real as they take form,  in a created world where past and present mingle seamlessly, where reality is never quite on kilter.  

My "past life" as a cultural historian is perhaps most evident in my "Stono Madonna" and "Gullah Spirit" series.  In this world, elements such as belief, identity and the imprint of the past loom large.  My approach is ethnographic.  Rather than the books and monographs of academic pursuits, the the output here is paint on canvas.

For those seeking bona fides: I have journalism degrees from Penn State (B.A.) and Temple University (M.A.), and a master's and Ph.D.  in American Civilization/Cutural History from University of Pennsylvania.  I studied for nearly a decade with American Master Jack Coggins, and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.

After being counseled in high school to abandon a planned art career and "do something respectable with your life," I abandoned painting for 20+ years while doing respectable things.  I've kicked  myself ever since for listening to that damn counselor.