ARTIST STATEMENT | I walked into a local Stinker (yes, real name) gas station and convenience store. Upon taking my purchases to the counter the young clerk remarked, “Dude, your head is perfectly round.” Pause, my reply: “Uh, thank you?” One would think that in such a perfectly round dome ideas and images might be orbiting neatly, ripe for the plucking. Nothing could be further from the truth. If my head were opened it would be quite messy. A lot goes in there and if I did not let it out, occasionally an eye would pop out. Though my work can be meticulous in its execution, my mind scribbles, jumps, spins, and spits. There is rarely more than an itch when I begin. Surface will speak to me and stuff emerges as unknown yet familiar characters, odd forms, and unbalanced juxtapositions. Some pieces divulge narratives as I paint, some stare back and challenge. Hopefully those who look at my work will be touched in that mad place that lies in the corner of all brains.
So I enter my lab where surfaces challenge and characters emerge who should probably never be born. But I keep releasing these things from my mind because it’s my passion. What I’m finding is that others don’t seem to mind them too much and will even invite them into their homes now and then.
Since graduating from BYU with a BFA in visual communication/illustration and later with an MFA in painting, I have exhibited in galleries and also worked as a designer, illustrator, and art director at universities, ad agencies, publishers, and large corporations.
Currently, I am a professor teaching illustration and drawing at Boise State University of the blue football field. Previously, I taught in, and chaired, the art department at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
I’ve greased enough palms to have been included in annuals like the Society of Illustrators NY, Spectrum, 3×3, American Illustration and have even finagled some medals. I have a decent client list and was proud to do a children’s book with Random House in 2002. I never stop painting and drawing for exhibitions and occasionally produce an illustration that lands a little off center.
I’m often asked when I started drawing; to which I generally respond, “When did you stop?” I believe that line was borrowed from someone cleverer than myself. But it is true.