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Statement

So, what's an artist for? What's art for? For me, the answers are simple:
art and artists are for giving people a lift.

As I say on my home page, I think that a good artist is a lot like a good musical performer.
When things go right, and she finds her groove, everyone in the audience
gets in the groove with her, and when the performance is done, everyone is jazzed
-- including the performer. A win-win situation for everyone.

Many things can give people a lift. What are people talking about, when they call a piece of art
"stunning?" My answer: skill, and the element of surprise. A work done with skill gives people
a way to partake of the artist's love of her craft, and love, of any kind, is a big part
of what makes life worth living. That's the easy part of the answer. But the element of surprise
-- what's that about? That takes us into deep waters. Many books have been written
on that question, and it would be the height of presumption for me to even try to answer it.
So, here's my answer:
Surprise opens a window on the reality of infinite possibility.
And when a piece of art opens for us a window like that, that also helps us keep going.
Because possibility means hope.

My craft is drawing. I love to draw. Most especially, I love to draw the human figure.
I paint, too, but as far as painting is concerned, well, somebody said once, "Painting
is drawing in color." That works for me. Skill at rendering the human face and form has been
my one goal as an artist since I was a teenager, and I'm still working hard at that.
As far as how well I have managed the element of surprise -- well, you will have to judge that
for yourself.

Thanks again for visiting my site.

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Other Artists

If someone can render the human figure with skill and economy and insight and imagination,
that's good work. That commands my respect. I don't see that it matters whether it's in a
comic book, or in a portrait, or in a magazine illustration, or in a gallery, or in a tattoo parlor.

The gesture of a single hand, well drawn, moves me in a way
that no "installation" has, that I've ever seen or heard of.

There are a lot of people on the Web who are doing FINE work. As a temporary measure (until I re-do my links page), here are a few links to such work:

GORILLA ARTFARE. A "collective" blog, with many *Excellent* working artists.
http://theimaginenation.blogspot.com/ Another excellent group blog
Joshua Middleton
Adam Hughes
Deviant Art
Bruno Leyval
Andreas Preis
Some Flikr groups:
The Drawing Club at Flikr
Drawing: We Do It Every Day
Ink Drawings
Obsessive Drawing
pen and ink drawings

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My old
LINKS
page

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Bio



1954: Born in Salzburg, Austria -- an Army brat
1955-1960: Travelled extensively in the continental United States.
New Mexico. Colorado. Georgia. California.
1960: Settled down in Juneau, Alaska.
Pretty much anything you imagine about growing up in Alaska is true.
1972-1979: Came to Oregon. Had embarassing adventures in Portland.
1979: Moved to Corvallis, Oregon, to attend Oregon State University.
1983: Earned B.S. in Art from OSU in 1983.
Did undergraduate work primarily with the sculptor Wayne Taysom.
1986-present: Exhibited in Corvallis, Oregon & its environs.
1972-2008: Employment: cannery worker, furniture-factory worker, baker, chicken-shit
shoveller, Montessori School art instructor, elementary school-teacher,
construction worker in Alaska, life-drawing model, sculptor's assistant,
cook, welder in a railroad boxcar assembly plant, physics research assistant,
and other things I forget.
1989-2002: Employed in telecommunications industry.
1995: Earned B.S., Electrical Engineering, OSU.
1996: Married Fay Jones, now the ceramic artist Fay Jones Day.
1995-2002: Electrical design engineer. Designed low-noise amplifiers,
splitters, recieve-multicouplers.
2002-2008: Earned Ph.D. in physics (2008, OSU).
Ph.D. thesis: On The Photoresponse Of Several Novel Functionalized
Oligoacene and Anthradithiophene Derivatives.

After earning my doctorate, I tried getting my license to be a high school math teacher.
The attempt was a painful disaster.
While working on the Ph.D., working on getting a teaching license --
I never could set art aside. I was, in effect, a part-time free-lance illustrator,
and occasional fine artist.
The work on the Ph.D. and the student teaching yielded an unforseen benefit:
it finished some important unfinished business. A long story, but the essence is:
I have now tried doing the things that I was supposed to try doing.
So now, I'm a full-time artist.
I am presently self-employed as a free-lance illustrator.


Curriculum Vitae

Education
Bachelor of Science in Art, Oregon State University, 1983
Area of Specialisation: Sculpture
Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Oregon State University, 1995
Doctor of Philosophy, Physics, Oregon State University, 2008

Shows & Exhibitions
One-man Shows:
1983 Linn-Benton Community College, Albany, Oregon
1987 Oregon State University, Memorial Union Concourse Exhition
1995 New Morning Bakery, Corvallis, Oregon
1995 Moon Dance Art Company, Sweet Home, Oregon
1996 Pegasus Art Gallery, Corvallis, Oregon
1996 Kinetic Bagel Restaurant, Corvallis, Oregon
1996 Footwise Gallery, Corvallis, Oregon
1996 Unitarian Fellowship Hall, Corvallis, Oregon
1997 Footwise Gallery, Corvallis, Oregon
1997 Corvallis Library
1997 Good Samaritan Hospital, Corvallis, Oregon
1998 Radio Frequency Systems, Corvallis, Oregon

Group Shows:
1987 Corvallis Community Show.
1988 Corvallis Community Show.
2004 Projekt30 October online juried show.
2005 The Men / The Women, Pegasus Art Gallery, Corvallis, Oregon
2006 Annual Printmasters Exhibition, Pegasus Art Gallery, Corvallis, Oregon
2006 Emerald Art Center National Juried Exhibition, Springfield, Oregon

Awards
Best of Show, Corvallis Community Show, 1987
Merit Award, Emerald Art Center National Juried Exhibition, Springfield, Oregon, 2006
People's Choice Award, Corvallis Community Show, 2008

Gallery Representation
Pegasus Frame Studio and Gallery, Corvallis, Oregon

Work as Illustrator
Linocut chapter illustrations, book cover, and frontispiece, for poetry anthology,
New Classic Poems, edited by Neil Harding McAlister, 2005
Linocut chapter illustrations, book cover and frontispiece etching, for poetry anthology,
Rhyme and Reason edited by Neil Harding McAlister, 2006
Book cover illustration and CD insert drawings for Audio Book:
Homer, The Iliad, translated and narrated by Stanley Lombardo,
with additional readings by Susan Sarandon, published by Parmenides Publishing, 2006
Book cover illustration and CD insert drawings for Audio Book:
Homer, The Odyssey, translated and narrated by Stanley Lombardo,
with additional readings by Susan Sarandon, published by Parmenides Publishing, 2006

Sonnet

I seek the strongest image I can find
to fill the empty canvas waiting there.
I welcome all rough discord in my mind,
each shadowy contender, with no care
for conflict's cost, if there be victory,
if, when at last I charge my brush with paint,
one mighty thought has gained the mastery,
and rules my hand's next moves without restraint.
But someday I will paint the final stroke,
when long forgotten is this pregnant strife,
the draftsman's tools are long since still, and smoke
has long since cleared to show, in this one life,
what has been done. That day it will be clear
if Beauty, or mere Truth, was sovereign here.