I am a historian as much as an artist. I want to interpret a story, not just paint an image. My best work does justice to the known, while acknowledging the unknown. I am an “artstorian.” I was born in Portland, Oregon and graduated with a history degree from Portland State University where I was fascinated with the bleak truths of the Western frontier and the wandering emigrants’ often fruitless search for Utopia. I took my curiosity and became a newspaper reporter for a while. I have sold and shown paintings and drawings in Oregon and Idaho and been commissioned for many works, but I create mostly because it connects me to something that I don’t entirely understand. In my next life I want to see many things I’ve only read about. Mostly I want to see the endless horizons of the Great Plains with its millions of buffalo. I hope I can bring my paints. Until then, I will be here putting on canvas what speaks to me from the pages of history, usually in acrylics.
Since the 1980s I have sold and shown paintings and drawings in Oregon and later in Idaho and been privately commissioned for many works, including jury sketches and federal bird conservation reports. I paint mainly in acrylics and my preferred subject matter is a historic take on wildlife, lonesome places, or specific events. My clients and collectors include individuals and non-profits and are generated via my online presence or word-of-mouth. I also am the owner/ghost writer/editor/designer at Bottlefly Press, a non-fiction book publishing company. Most recently I decided to embark on a project that has never been done before: creating portraits of every soldier, civilian and Native American who died in the Battle of Little Bighorn, which I am turning into a “traveling cemetery.”
