I call myself a self-taught artist, but to tell the truth, I have had many many teachers. Some were real live people, others were Old Masters who generously taught me as I copied their great masterpieces. I have been around long enough to see fashion in painting come and go, that taught me to disconnect myself from the spirit of the times, and paint what is in my heart. In doing so, I also disconnected myself from the mainstream of painting in my area, and freed myself from the approval of others.
In my younger years I was a Photographer. My teacher was Murray Spitzer who was a "Life and Time" Photographer in the heyday of Life Magazine, and the greatest influence on my art. I loved Photography passionately, but it never went far enough. It has been my quest in this life to reconcile photograpy and painting because I see photography as a form of drawing. Photography is very impermanent, Paintings done right will last forever.
My Biography is in my paintings, What you sees is where I am now, I fully expect to be better in the future. The materials I use are very much the same as the Old Masters. I use only the finest traditional materials, usually Oil on Linen, if I do watercolors, they are usually studies for oil paintings. I sometimes do drawings, but find them lacking in intensity. |