What led you to art? Architecture was one of my original degree considerations along with physics and engineering. I have always loved music and performed in various bands, duos and trios since I was around eleven years old. Photography was something I also loved. I would go around with my camera taking shots and basically developing my eye for composition and technique on my own. As an adult the interest deepened and I became serious about the craft, lighting and how to create moody work. I guess there has always been a side of me regardless of music or visual art that wanted to know how the technology involved worked as well as how to practice the craft. To me everything is related and unless you try to understand and work with all the aspects, you are not truly honing your craft. Honestly, printmaking and moving into digital art came as a surprise. I had always loved the Japanese master printmakers, but when I started working in intaglio and monoprint, I fell in love with the work and how I could take my emotions and abstractly represent them. I moved those techniques into the digital and hybrid worlds and continue to discover with each new work or exercise.
What are you presently inspired by? I am influenced by eastern philosophy and metaphysics, so I am really trying to learn to be in the moment and try to clear my mind of the cacophony of thoughts running around and just play in a perfectly clear, childlike Zen manner when I am creating. I find it both challenging as well as thrilling as I am a person who obviously thinks too much! A course I took long ago on Eastern Metaphysics and Modern Physics has been a source of constant links to ideas and people who inspire me.
Do you have a background in something other than art? This is a loaded question for me! I originally degree was in Physics. I have a love for the nature as well as how it works that led me to study acoustics, electronics and optics. I worked as a computer programmer and after the tech bubble burst, I went back to school and finished an interdisciplinary master’s program in Computer Science and Education. I had a graduate assistant-ship that turned into a job and I am still working here almost nineteen years later. Finally, for my encore, I decided I wanted to formalize my art training so I completed a BFA program (concentrations in photography and printmaking with an art history minor).
Words to live by . . . a favorite quote or motto? I love quotes and collect them. I will use the two that have found their way to my email signature line:
"Life is too important to be taken seriously." - Oscar Wilde
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein
I have a dry wit with a bit of sarcasm and utterly goofy sense of humor. These two observations one by arguably the most quotable man to ever live and one by the greatest Physicists of the twentieth century showcase a bit of how I try to take life and be in the moment. Do art or artists have a responsibility to do anything in particular? To be true to themselves and explore wherever that leads! Describe a quality have you retained since childhood? Curiosity about absolutely everything!
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Neo-Noir
I create art to get in touch with my inner moods, emotions and ideas. I tend to be a person who overthinks everything, so I try to empty my mind and just be present and let texture, shape and color flow. I am strongly influenced by Buddhist and Taoist Philosophy as well as ideas from Modern Physics. I try to use these ideas in my method with the work being spontaneous, moody, and more like improvisational jazz rather than highly regimented classical music dependent on precise adherence to a score.
In my photography, I try to take the realistic image and move it to a moody, dreamlike state or plane. I do not expect the viewer to have the same feelings I do about a work, rather I hope they will explore their own emotions and personal reaction to my works.