I loved to draw when I was a kid.  I once drew a Wooly Mammoth on a piece of ruled school paper and gave it to my Aunt.  She and Uncle Lee ran a road house on the Highway that runs through Klamath Falls, Oregon and when I happened to visit them several years later, I noticed that my now yellowing Mammoth was still hanging behind the bar in a dime store frame.  That’s probably when I realized that drawing was cool, something that people cherish and value.  I didn’t actually take a formal art lesson until I was 26 years old, at an evening Adult Education class at the high school in Concord, California.  That was my first experience with oil paint, fine brushes and stretched canvas.  Wow!  Well, flash forward another 20 years when I began to study art in earnest, first at the University of Akron (where I eventually took my degree in Business Administration), and went on to finally  learn painting the time honored way…with successful teaching Artists, one on one,  in private studios.   My teachers were Bernice Fitzgibbons, Gene Bell, Jack Liberman and my mentor, Dino Massaroni with whom I studied for 5 years and learned the technique  and pallet I use to this day.

I continued to paint, sell, and grow right up to retirement from BFGoodrich Company as a Corporate Cash Manager in 1999 when my wife and I moved to New Mexico and for the next 9 years painted in the mountains and desert of the great Southwest.   We returned to Ohio in 2008..

I’ve done all the local shows  that local artists do, and have been twice honored by having paintings accepted at the  Butler Institute of American Art’s annual Midyear show.   I continue to paint, sell and teach out of my Stow, Ohio Studio.  I currently have two students who are of Intermediate School age and it is such a joy to guide them and  watch them grow.  I now fully understand what inspired all of those fine artists who taught me to paint all those years ago.  I also have instructed my wife Elaine who is a very gifted oil painter who has won many awards in shows in New Mexico where we were both signature members of the Black Range Artists, Inc.  I am currently a signature member of the Akron Society of Artists.