Color Plus More Color

Hello! I’m a resident of Missoula, Montana, by way of Tucson, Arizona.

I am self taught, and newish to painting, though I have an extensive creative background. I’ve been a touring musician, a band leader, songwriter, a furniture maker, and most recently, a clothing designer and textile artist.

I like painting on canvas and wood, mainly with acrylic, but sometimes spray paint, pastels, charcoal, and pencil. I also love making light fixtures incorporating found components and animal hide, leather and fleece.

Far and away my biggest obsession is color. Looking at bright colors can be such a joyful experience for me. I want to share that joy with other people and I want them to feel their spaces come to life with infusions of color.

My current subject matter is mammals of North America, as depicted by John J. Audubon. To me, his animal drawings are weirdly cartoonish and realistic, both at the same time. Audubon himself was a slave-owner, a grave robber, and a falsifier of scientific results. In other words, a perfect symbol of racism, imperialism and colonialism. Yet the animals themselves remain magnificent, and defiant.

Placing this imagery over contemporary backdrops allows me to express the tension between the natural world and the built world, the way we use animal imagery to decorate our spaces versus our actual relationships and treatment of animals and wild spaces, and finally, to grapple with the ways my own existence imperials the natural world. I was surprised to find myself occasionally moved to tears during the making of these paintings. I felt overcome by a sort of worshipful tenderness for each animal.

If that feels too heavy, enjoy the beasts and the colors.

I plan on continuing to explore these fantastic animals, and layering them on different backdrops, fields, shapes and patterns. I would also like to experiment with rendering them on different materials; like plexiglass, metal, and fabric.

As for my creative process, I can be inspired by almost anything. I think of myself as an active ‘looker’. Sometimes I’m just driving or walking around looking at stuff. Then ideas or images or even just color combinations arise, and I jot them down in little notebooks. The persistent images I sketch up into potential paintings. This includes more abstract pieces, which are a great way for me to shake out and unkink from the tiny, precise brushstrokes and formality of the animal paintings.

I’m very much looking forward to making even larger scale paintings, as well as big floor lamps and lighting installations. Ideally, I want to try my hand at some pieces that combine painting and lighting.

I hope to receive commissions from individuals, and to work with designers on creating pieces for their residential and commercial clients.