Art is a personal journey and sustaining force. A regular habit of drawing and painting from life helps me to live in the present and appreciate the splendor of the world around me. Land, water and climate are strong pulls for me in my painting work. I enjoy my time outdoors, for both art making and adventure. I work from Life and images of my own experience and curiosity, usually in oil paint but using other media as well, as a project suggest. Though my images tend toward the recognizable it is essential for them to reveal something beyond realism, with creative attention to color, emotion and an underlying physical and pictorial structure. The artist's hand, a sense of play, material and creativity must be evident in each finished work. The most successful pieces are those that happen in joy, without struggle and from the heart. I spent my childhood in Seattle, and continue to grow up in Idaho and wherever else my explorations take me. I studied Fine Arts and Industrial Design at the University of Washington and continually seek to learn, share and promote art in my community. I make art and practice architecture in McCall, Idaho and wherever else I can get away with it "