A middle-aged mixed-media artist, Hoosier by birth but based in Portland, Oregon for the past 20 years.  I started making art early and never really stopped.  We were not rich folks, so I learned to work with whatever was around, dot matrix printer paper, wallpaper scraps, grocery bags, broken bookshelves, discarded lumber.  That rust belt mentality towards creating never left.  I still use salvaged materials and whatever tools happen to be available. I studied art and art history at Indiana University, where I spent a little too much time worrying about the “correct” way to make art.  Oils one way, acrylics another, everything with its own rules.  Eventually I realized that way of thinking had nothing to do with why I liked making things in the first place.

 

Now I work in layers, usually without much of a fixed plan.  Sometimes a piece starts from a photo or reference, sometimes from random marks that slowly turn into something recognizable.  Most of what is there in the beginning gets buried, sanded down, repainted, or changed completely by the end. My influences are all over the place.  Francis Bacon, Chaïm Soutine, Jack Kirby, Mick Foley, Carrie Fisher, Godzilla, Norm Macdonald, Kurt Vonnegut, comic books, and professional wrestling all make equal sense to me.  I am drawn to things that feel exaggerated, human, funny, uncomfortable, damaged, or a absurd.

 

I have been showing work around Portland for the better part of two decades in bars, coffee shops, DIY spaces, and more than a few defunct galleries.  

 

I paint a lot of faces.