I grew up in a small rural community in northeastern Illinois. After military service, I graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where I studied lithography, photomechanical lithography, oil painting, drawing, and sculpture.
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Currently, I am studying and making thrown and handbuilt stoneware and porcelain pottery at Lill Street Art Center in Chicago. In the near future I plan on building a down draft gas fired kiln and transform my painting studio into a pottery studio.
Early in my career I painted in oil and encaustic, but I felt a desire to work in more challenging mediums and began experimenting with watercolors. From 1988 to 2008 I worked almost exclusively in that medium. My first series in watercolor titled "Architectural Series" featured paintings of Chicago’s viaducts, roadways, and bridge structures and was painted from 1989 to 1999.
From 1999 to 2003 I painted a series again in watercolor in which I combined interior structural architecture with tropical plants found in the Chicago botanical conservatories of Lincoln Park and Garfield Park. This series was insprired by my taking my watercolor classes to the Lincoln Park Conservatory.
From 2003 to 2008 I painted a series of works on paper (watercolors) titled “The Little Things” depicting objects that I selected because of their shape, color, patina, and personal or social significance that I enhanced through the process of painting. These works may be seen at BigCityArt.com.
My day jobs have included working as a museum preparator and exhibit project coordinator at The Field Museum of Chicago, The Joh G. Shedd Aquarium, and The Chicago Children’s Museum. I have taught watercolor painting at Columbia College Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Water soluble printmaking and watercolor painting at Gallery 37 for Anchor Graphics and the Chicago Department of Cultural affairs. During the summer of 2006 I taught watercolor painting in Florence, Italy for Columbia College Chicago in conjunction with Santa Reparatta International School of Art. I have also taught drawing at Indiana University at South Bend and was gallery director there.
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