Painting is Play!
You don't need a refined understanding of visual aesthetics to connect with this work. All that really matters is that you feel it — the vibration, that spark of recognition. My work gives you permission to open up to your inner child and re-experience play.
Artist Statement:
"Play is the portal to curiosity, wonder and joy!"
I've never been able to stop making art — it's how I process the world and find my way back to what matters.
I paint to be present and live in the now; to get back to the innocence of a child, emotionally intuitive, in my natural state of curiosity, wonder, and joy.
I hope you feel that same aliveness that I do standing in front of my work. You may be surprised and pleasantly intrigued by what you see — excited by the color, textures and layers that open a doorway, an invitation to play, to live in the moment, and truly be yourself.
I want you to experience joy, curiosity, wonder, and joy — brought to life by the energy and playfulness I infuse in every piece.
A few of my art heroes are— Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, and Robert Rauschenberg — have long influenced my sensibility.
I studied at Cornish Institute 1982-1986 in Seattle (now Cornish College of the Arts) under Charles Stokes, Norie Sato, Bill Hoppe, and David Nechak who were influential in my work.
Demonstration of monotype printing with encaustics.
In the Studio!
The spirit of play shapes everything about how I work in the studio.
My practice is the discipline of non-discipline — trusting the unknown, allowing space for organic flow, and embracing spontaneity as a guiding principle in itself.
Active play removes inhibitions that restrict my creative flow, allowing me to discover my authentic voice and feel alive.
My focus shifted when I started letting go: I kept painting over things, whether I liked them or not, because I wanted to stay in motion by using different tools — it forced things to change, and then my responses changed.
Training in the Montessori Method taught me to nourish my inner child, something I've carried into my teaching — I've led encaustic painting workshops at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina once or twice a year for the past seven years. He retired after 30 years in higher education teaching Interactive Design — web, motion graphics, and animation.
Today, I am building a sustainable professional studio practice rooted in the same spirit that started this journey: Joy!
Play process in action …
My Blog:
Notes from the Outer Plane
The outer plane is a place run by different rules.
That's what painting is for me — a threshold I cross when I want to see things differently.
Notes from the Outer Plane is where I write from that side of the door. Happy accidents, new work in progress, what I'm discovering about color, shape, and staying out of my own way.
No theory, no decoding required — just a standing invitation to come play.