Born in St. Louis Missouri, I actually spent most of my growing-up years in Reno Nevada.   Graduating from Robert McQueen High School I attended college at SIU Carbondale, SPU Seattle, and finally Azusa Pacific University in Southern California.   I graduated from Azusa Pacific with a bachelors of science degree in Computer Science in 1992.   I then moved to St. Louis and married my absolute-best-friend, Leandra.   We now have two great kids and I have been making a living as a Programmer Analyst specializing in Microsoft SQL and data analysis in the St. Louis area.

The Arts

To balance this highly technical and left-brained career, I've found it to be a great joy to work in all forms of artistic expression.   So, like a pendulum, I can swing from the left-brained world of logic and mathematics to the right-brained world of intuition and spontaneity and back again.   In so doing I flex the muscles of creativity in both directions and preserve my sanity to boot.   I've worked in and experimented with many forms and styles of art media, including:

• Archetectural & Technical Drawing
• Poetry & Free Verse
• Painting in Oils & Acrylic
• Stained Glass
• Ceramics
• Advertising Art
• Lapidary & Jewelry Arts
• Chinese Brush Painting & Seal Engraving
• Stone Sculpture
• Classical Voice & Barbershop
• Photography
• Woodworking
• Culinary Arts
• Blues Harp (Harmonica)

Ceramics

Ceramics had been my focus area for some twenty years up through my college days, and I still have plans to open a studio in the future.   My first introduction to the world of ceramics came from my grandmother Olga.   I can only remember a few moments when I actually got to see her working, but the abundance of beautiful pieces that decorated my grandparent's home left an indelible impression.

Along with the love of this art form, she also gave me her library of ceramics texts, most from the 1950's, and her tools which I consider my most prized possessions.   Unfortunately, my grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's in her later years, and that great living library of skill and wisdom was closed to me.   One of the California earthquakes also destroyed most of her finished works.   Her notebooks and glaze recipes (if any still existed) were also lost after that earthquake.   The pieces that survived in the private collections of family members are small reminders of a much greater influence on the direction of my life.

I was taught the basics of the craft through an apprenticeship with 'Winnie' Wright (Reno, NV).   In high school I was under the wonderful tutelage of Mrs. Lani Albin (Robert McQueen High; Reno, NV).   The joy she exuded in all things artistic and the freedoms of expression and experimentation she gave me through my school years solidified my love for this art into a permanent extension of my being.   Although beginning in hand-building techniques, most of my later college work had been utilitarian in nature and done on the potter's wheel.   In style I've been strongly influenced by the beauty in simplicity of early Japanese pottery, specifically the works of Shoji Hamada.   I strive to achieve such effortless splendor, seeming to be the result of careful planning and pure happenstance all at once.

Glazing techniques and formulation has been an area of concentrated interest.   Most of my efforts have been in the area of high-fire reduction techniques, but I hope to begin my home studio work with a return to the controlled chaos that is raku.

Jewelry

I'd gotten in to making earrings a couple of years back, mainly to make nice little 'just because' presents for my wife.   I hadn't done any in quite a while, but when my grandfather passed in the Summer of 2003, my family and I discovered that he had done some dabbling in jewelry making when he was a young man and his tools had been passed on to me.   With such a legacy, how could I help but take up the craft once again?

I prefer working with silver and natural stone, but have incorporated crystal, lamp-work, and seed-beads and am pushing myself into other elements as I experiment in the craft.  I hope to one day start a small lamp-work studio (more easily achievable than a ceramics studio).

See my storefront on Etsy.com!

Faith

(2-do)

Technology

(2-do)

Poetry

(2-do)