Bio
I started working with colored papers when living in Thailand in the late 60’s. The exotic qualities of the particularly magical translucent materials and gold-leaf votive papers were enticing, and I created naive collages that had some 3 dimensional parts. I wanted to work more with this kind of thing even though I had little idea about what Art was. I decided to switch my major to Art (from music) when I returned to UCLA in the fall of ‘68. The campus atmosphere there was positive and the resources were great to begin figuring things out. Professors were willing to work with anyone including the uninitiated; there I learned that I could learn to draw as well as write paragraphs.
I found some of the West Coast slant (Diebenkorn had been there) at the University of Illinois where I transferred after my first year, where I completed both my degrees. I was exposed to both Chicago and New York artists who were less interested in “juice” than minimal, funk, and conceptual. There I saw my first Kurt Schwitters show which featured the mall collages. This became the formative experience. I had found an “art of the possible”.
Out of school I taught for a year at the University of Wyoming, then moved back to California and lived in San Francisco nearly 15 years. Part of the time I worked for galleries and learned about photography at Lowinsky, Fraenkel, and Wirtz. I also made artificial eyes for the Veteran’s Administration Hospital at Ft. Miley.
After years out of teaching, getting hired to teach at Walla Walla College in 1995 was my big break. My first couple of years here were spent in experimentation since this was my first real studio in awhile. Eventually, I settled into mixed media painting, mostly on paper, using still life subjects. Most recently I have been taking photographs using hand-held and double-exposure techniques to simulate painting and collage. |
