My art education began at birth; with my parentage coursing the way of my education. In Utah, my father had become a renowned religious muralist and University Arts Professor. In 1964 at the age of 10 my father would take my drawings and watercolors to school to compare with college students work. Painting next to my father in 1969, at the age of 13, on a wet and cold rainy day near Yellowstone, I painted my first landscape in oils. The next spring of 1970, my painting won best of show in Utah's statewide exhibit. It hung next to my junior high art teachers painting who only received an honorable mention. My father's legacy was passed on to me at that moment.
That same year I entered my first sculptures in statewide exhibit. I won several awards including four University scholarships. The judges had to rescind their decisions, since they had presumed that the work I did reflected a much older student. The museum, recognizing the level of work that I was capable of performing, introduced me to an old master sculptor Avard Fairbanks. He felt sympathy for me, because he experienced the same thing at the same show in 1912. He sponsored my apprenticeship, mentoring me for many years.
I worked with him on several monumental projects over a span of 10 years. He was known as America's anatomist. As well, several renowned American sculptors grew up in my home town; Cyrus Dallin, Mahonri Young, Avard Fairbanks and Hughes Curtis. My fortunate association with these artists opened opportunities. For example, in 1973 I sculpted a coin of Cyrus Dallin's Paul Revere monument, which is one of the most recognized landmarks in Boston. The coin was for the United States sesquicentennial. As a teenager, I was invited to sell my sculptures at Snowbirds Cliff Lodge. I enrolled in local University arts programs, but became disheartened. The instructors wanted me to expand myself by wrapping logs with rope and throw tomatoes at steel. I could not be inspired by professors who could not draw or sculpt as well as I did, and did not respect classical art. My education continued on my own, with guidance from my mentors..
In 1980 I eagerly moved to San Francisco to attend the Academy of Art, which met my personal criteria for drawing and painting. I supported myself being a sculptural enlarger for Bay Area foundries. I sculpted for several world renowned sculptors; Richard McDonald, Jacques Schnier, Stephen Destabler, David Smith and Arnaldo Pomodoro. I was personally commissioned by Sterling Calder's granddaughter, to sculpt a 12 foot statue copy of his star maiden for the 1915 Panama exposition in San Francisco. By now I was also exhibiting and selling in San Francisco's most exclusive gallery, Maxwell galleries on Sutter Street, while studying at the Academy.
In 1988 I moved my family back to Utah, where I picked up more commissions as an enlarger. In 1991 I retired from working for other artists. Having a passion for the figure I started drawing ballet dancers at the University of Utah's school of Ballet. There Ballet West , one of the leading ballet companies in the US found me. They asked me to bring in a painting to show their Board. After viewing only one painting of a ballet dancer, they asked me to have a one man show to raise money for their guild. After that first successful event, I had three consecutive shows each year, bringing in around $500,000 each year for the Guild. Each show was a televised event. Furthermore,
Clark Leeming Designs, Doran Taylor Designs, and Williams Fine Art Gallery were now promoting me as a figure in portrait painter. I was painting around 150 paintings per year. I was commissioned to paint many notable persons including Sally Eccles, Ambassador to Sweden Frank Forsberg, and Bishop of the Utah Diocese George Niederauer.
In 2001 we moved to Florida to take care of my wife's parents. I continued to paint portraits, but yearned to sculpt again. I have painted several portraits, including three of LHPS Board of Trustees, and the conductor to the Orlando Philharmonic, Christopher Wilkins. I have painted several family portraits locally and out of state. I have also completed several bronze portraits, including LHPS family of Kathy Haldeen, the son of LHPS co-founder Mr. Bradshaw, and posthumous pre traits for several families. I was invited to present a demonstration of creating a bronze portrait of Romano Salvatori in the Cornell Museum, which is in the Cornell Museum permanent collection. I did several large commissions through American bronze; for such people as Chris Sullivan and Albert and Alberta statue in front of the University of Florida Alumni House across from the stadium.
Along with these commissions, I have conducted private portrait and still life painting and drawing lessons for art students from LHPS. Many received local awards for their works, such as Congressional Art Award, Scholastic Arts Award, WP Arts Festival, and LHPS Arts Festival. My students have gone on to Arts Universities with scholarships in hand.
In 2009 I was commissioned by Embry Riddle Aeronautics University to build a 20 foot high by 26 feet wide by 20 feet deep stainless steel sculpture of a stylized bird/plane form. I created, designed, engineered, and built the sculpture myself. It is constructed of quarter inch stainless steel plate, over a framework of 6 5/8 inch steel tube. I constructed the entire sculpture without a crew, until the final polish. This art work lasted 2 1/2 years to complete, working seven days a week often times beginning each day at 2 AM. The day the scaffolding was removed on site, was truly liberating for me and the sculpture.
I have retired from portrait work, and now carefully scrutinize commissioned work. My focus is to return to sculpture full time, with fewer interrupts. I have now resumed my stone sculpture, Gipsoteca, and bronze sculpture. I'm also researching and writing about classical sculpture, providing an emphasis on the sculptural relationship of symmetry and proportion of the human body to architecture as described in the Vitruvius's 10 volumes De Architectura ("On Architecture"), published first century A.D. and addressed to Augustus Caesar.
My work has been shown in:
San Francisco's Maxwell galleries, Salt Lake City's Williams fine art gallery. I also have work in the Springville Museum of Art, the Cornell Museum of art, and been invited to exhibit at the Polasek Museum. Other arts venues include Ballet West and the Orlando Philharmonic.
My work has been collected by:
Rudy and Mary Jacuzzi, Fritz and Barbara Reed, Spence and Claire Eccels, Tom Sieg, Ambassador Frank and Anne Forseberg, John and Mary Hart of the Joffrey ballet, Barbara Slaymaker, Merline Leeming, Doran Taylor, Elliot Taylor,Dan & Martha Shepard, Lake Highland Preparatory School, and numerous families from Lake Highland Preparatory School. .
Recent Publications:
The Fabricator
Orlando Arts Magazine
Orlando Sentinel
Daytona Beach News Journal
The History of the Doberman Pinscher as Depicted Through Collectibles, Art and Literature
My philosophy is
To be wise enough not to have a concrete philosophy, or as Alfred North Whitehead would say to suffer from misplaced concretions. I don't know what drives me, or if I'll have a lasting contribution. My art happens not of my own accord, it is as if I am grabbed and pulled struggling into a deep vast abyss. Resisting I am pulled even into greater depths of darkness. Frustration and despair are the constant gatekeepers to art, and I welcome these two constant companions. when they arrive I know I'm close to insight. So my philosophy, is to relax and wait for the thunder. The deluge of insight comes without any will of my own, as if I am woken from a deep slumber. I have no choice in such matters as this, I have no audience to please but this ineffable energy that seems to drive me, perhaps my muse.
She speaks to me not in words because words are too clumsy, but in a language of the heart. Art speaks of its own accord, and needs no words. Only bad art and music needs words! We know art and music is true without someone having to explain it to us. Art needs no translation; we know it to be true instantly when we experience it. Art is true when it is in harmony with the rhythms of the cosmos. There are patterns, proportions, and rhythms in nature which are universal, from the bud of a flower to a spiral nebula. Beauty is truth!
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