Making art has been essential to my life since my earliest memories.

My artistic journey began as a small child living in the wild south of Houston, Texas. My earliest memories are of making art by drawing in the dirt with a stick before I could even recite my ABCs. A significant portion of my childhood was spent at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, learning about the great masters early on, trying to understand abstract work that was foreign –yet strangely familiar– and making poorly rendered sketches of the works I most loved.

I worked as a graphic designer for several years until one day I realized I was only truly happy when working in the studio and was tired of only painting in my few spare moments of down time. This led me to enroll in graduate school at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, TX where I initially honed my abilities in the realistic rendering of subject matter. I was going to be the next Da Vinci! Or Caravaggio! Or Gentileschi! Or Robertson. Who cared what the name of the cabbage was, I was going to be the next great rosy realist.

As I became engaged in art study and creation full time, I felt something was missing in my work. I found my paintings taking on more and more physical weight and dimension as I added and attempted to sculpt layers of paint, trying to make something more three dimensional out of a two dimensional surface. This was my way of beginning to invite abstraction into my work and began the process of overturning the rigid "realist/representational only” concepts to which I had previously adhered. 

I continued to further explore these abstract and sculptural revelations. After several years of trying and failing to balance my aspirations to fully bloom as a sculptor and artist in general along with a full time job of teaching art in college, I realized I could only be happy making art full-time. Having the opportunity to work full-time on art renewed my discovery and creative process. Among other things, I am inspired by found and ordinary objects, multiple repetitions of shapes, and circular and spherical forms.

I thrive upon the influence of my surroundings and am constantly seeking new adventures and stimulation in my home area. Many of my materials and inspirations have come from sojourns across the southern portion of the United States and the environment of the magical cypress woods surrounding my studio on the shores of Caddo Lake. I respond to this stimulation by inventing unexpected techniques with traditional media, finding ways to make familiar objects attain a new form of magic, acquiring new skills, and making each new work innovative in some way. My work is fueled by a reaction to previous art works I have made. Therefore, you will find in my repertoire a contrasting variety of concepts such as rusted and shiny, light and heavy, angular and organic, delicate and rugged. I hope each piece represents something familiar, but unexpected, echoing ordinary things and places while still allowing for a mysterious and unexpected encounter.