I have found that painting outdoors is my favorite form of art. When I am out there I feel at one with my surroundings and myself. It is my goal to become a master plein air painter, able to express the truth and beauty of the natural world.

I didn't always know my artistic purpose...

My whole life I was "in" to art. I would draw in my spare time and I always thought that arts and crafts time was the best part of the school day. As I got older I started drawing the characters from my books and dungeons and dragons games. I took ceramics, sculpture and drafting in high school. All of which I excelled at, but I never thought of studying in college because "artists never make money until their dead" and I didn't want to be a "starving artist".

I came into college a computer science major and calculus stopped that idea. I then switched to philosophy but got bored half way through Aristotle. So then, I figured that hey, I was really interested in people, I should be psychologist. I completed two years of undergrad psych bs, applying every psychosis to myself when I realized what I really wanted: to find and express myself. Art was the only choice at that point but it still was the hardest choice of my life so far.

Since college I have been consistently creating new work while holding down a full time job. I pretty much work on some form of drawing or painting or web site every day, either after work or on my lunch hour. I doodle constantly if given the chance. I love ink and pencil and paint. Most of all, I love the potential of a blank canvas.

Santa Barbara, CA 1993 - My first art show, at the proding of my mother, I entered a small sculpture into the SBCC Small Images Exhibition. Not only did I get in, I got some honorable mention award and someone offered to buy it for $150...

San Diego, CA 2003 and 2004 - I did many commissioned paintings and two big shows with artist Alex Lanau. He had been doing this for some time and I knew alot of people too, so we ended up drawing over 300 people. I think we sold 20 paintings each.

Santa Barbara, CA 2005 - I did a group show at the Art Den. Had a few people come, didn't sell any paintings but it was fun. This is also when I started to show my plein air pieces. I also put my stuff up at Soho for a month.

Santa Barbara, CA 2006 - I decided to bring all my stuff down to the Cabrillo Beach Art Walk. This is a weekly event where you have arts and crafts from all different artists along the Cabrillo Boardwalk in SB. It was a great experience as I would talk to a lot of different people, mostly from out of town. I would sell on average of one or two paintings each time and I would get to paint the whole day.

Santa Barbara, CA 2007 - I really focused on developing my technique this year and only showed my paintings at a couple locally sponsered juried group shows: a Heal the Ocean show, at Gallery 113, and a benefit show for the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation. I started to read some of the popular texts on painting. It was really interesting to see masters did it, after trying to do it on my own for many years. I believe its important to be original but at the same time there is much you can learn from others.

Santa Barbara, CA 2008 - We produced our own Family Art Show. This was a great event on all accounts. There was a great group of people that came. We had the Chris Potter Art Show band doing a set of old TV theme songs. If I was more organized I would have a link to the video of it. Every member of the family sold something. Malakye, my son even sold 2 pieces for $5 each.

Santa Barbara, CA 2008 - I have been painting on my lunch hour every day in downtown Santa Barbara. I have finished about 8 paintings so far. I will have a couple of them in a group show at the Presidio on Sept 27th.