About the Artist

I was only four years old when father, an accomplished artist, snapped a photo of me. Beaming, I stood in his studio, holding up my first painting. I clearly remember his work space and the smell of spray adhesive… it was the beginning of many small projects given by him that would shape my future art. By fourth grade, I was always drawing and coping other artists to study and learn and make it look as accurate as possible, some even thought my work was better than the original…those little encouragements along the way that made all the difference. For my father, I worked on detailed, colored pencil illustrations. For friends, paint and pencil portraits or landscapes. But I soon realized that, whether or not I was creating artwork, I had the propensity for wanting to be around paint. And so, later on, a successful house painter hired me and taught me the trade, a skill I practiced for 20 years after developing my own business. During this time, I fought several major health issues, but my internal passion for painting and drawing gave me the desire to move on. After years of perseverance, practice, and study, I learned to develop my own thick painterly style that follows in the vein of neo-expressionistic impressionism. I mostly paint from memory of the places I have lived or visited. Nature and its intrinsic beauty remain the main source of my inspiration. Today, I have a strong desire to convey the essence of my internal feelings experienced during my daily life. As with other artists, working through life's challenges gives one a renewed strength and a growing appreciation of life. I want my work to be inspirational in helping others fight their own struggles and to have the courage to overcome and persist in their endeavors and dreams. Whenever I'm discouraged or fail to see how something that starts out somewhat mundane or empty could evolve into something beautiful and meaningful, I call to mind that hard work and faith make the artist. As time goes on, I realize that both inside and outside of the studio, that God prevails in my life and work~ .