I am an anatomist and portraitist, with 41 years of experience in the study of the human form and physiognomy of the face. I enjoy bridging multiple mediums, after having developed skills in stone sculpture, clay modeling, and painting. My work has led me to the most challenging art form, Portraiture in both clay modeling and painting. I have 35 years of practice in the Foundry Arts during which time I became skilled at monumental sculpture, learning to work with proficiency and speed while efficiently and accurately capturing true likeness.

My broad range of education in art began during the first 19 years of my life while growing up in my father’s studio. He was the best, and most encouraging, teacher I have ever known, introducing me to the art world early in life. When I was 10 years old, my father, a painter, muralist, and university professor at BYU, took my drawings to the university to show them to his students during demonstrations. By thirteen, he entered my work in competitions. I won best young artist in my home state of Utah. By fourteen, I won full tuition scholarships for sculpture to four universities. I had to turn the scholarships down because of my age. However, that same year I took advantage of my recognition and began an apprenticeship with noted sculptor and anatomist Avard Fairbanks. There, I learned about clay modeling, enlarging, monumental mold making, and stone sculpture. At seventeen, I wrote my first University Curriculum for a BYU art course, titled “Why Man Creates”. This was an introductory art course for summer students. By the age of 19, I was invited to work two years abroad in Pietrosanta with Dr. Fairbanks.

In 1970, I began working in foundries across this country. After 37 years, I have had the pleasure of working with some of America’s finest Artists, including Avard Fairbanks, Neil Hadlock, Dennis Smith, Grant Speed, Clark Bronson, Vladin Stiha, Wandell Wade, Steven Destabler, Jacques Schneer, David Smith, Richard Macdonald, and Stan Wanlass. I attended the Academy of Art in the 1980’s while assisting many artists in enlarging monuments, casting their works, and creating clay works for competitions for other artists. In 1988, I returned to Utah to continue my figure sculpture work.

In 1995, I began painting full time. In that first year, I painted Ballet West’s Principle dancers and had two shows with the Ballet. I received commissions to paint portraits of several notable people from Salt Lake including the Bishop of the Utah Diocese, Bishop George Niederaur, Ambassador to Sweden Frank Forsberg, and Sally Eccles of the Eccles foundation. Additionally, in response to the bronze portraits that I completed from 1996-2000, I received an invitation to be on the Deans list at the University of Utah.

In 2001, I relocated my family to Florida. I attained three monument commissions in my first year: Willie and Cogs Friends Forever, victims in the World Trade Tower on 9/11; Tarpon monument for Tarpon Springs; and Florida Gators Albert and Alberta. Upon invitation by the Cornell Art Museum, I demonstrated the process and completion of a Bronze Portrait of Romano Salvatore. I also completed bronze family portraits for the family of Kathy Haldine of Winter Park. In 2004, I completed 30 large oil portrait commissions, including the children of several prominent families in Utah and Florida, and the founding board members of the Lake Highland Preparatory School, Charles Bradshaw, Charles Rex, and Joseph Guernsey, which now hang at the school. My most recent portrait commission, which includes two paintings and one modeled bust, is that of the conductor to the Orlando Philharmonic Maestro Christopher Wilkins.

As an anatomist and portraitist, my passion now brings me back to my earliest sculptural interest, working with stone. I believe that a true sculptor works in stone!