My paintings have always contained beings and creatures in relationship with one another. They exist in a world where trust is natural, where tenderness is possible, where joy is shared, and where every living thing belongs. For many years I didn't understand why I kept returning to this world. I simply knew I needed to paint it.

Only later did I recognize that these paintings were creating the opposite of the world I had known.

I grew up in an alcoholic family; although my parents were basically good people, shame, instability, and the absence of emotional support shaped my earliest understanding of relationships. As a young teenager, I was raped. The isolation and lack of care (I never told anyone but there were obvious signs) that followed left me profoundly disconnected from other people. I stopped going to school and spent long days wandering alone through the hills and forests, finding in nature a sense of presence and acceptance that I could not find elsewhere.

Being accepted into the San Francisco Art Institute was one of the first great accomplishments of my life. Sadly, I encountered sexual misconduct from several staff members; that, and the theft of one of my strongest paintings reopened wounds of violation, shame, and invisibility. Through every disappointment and every loss, however, I continued to paint these mysterious beings who cared for one another. Long before I understood it consciously, they were showing me another way to exist.

After completing my master's degree at UC Berkeley, I began to recognize that the world I had been painting was not fantasy or escape. It was an emotional truth. My creatures were embodying the relationships I longed for—relationships built on trust rather than fear, connection rather than shame, curiosity rather than judgment, and love rather than power. The paintings had become a place of refuge, but also a quiet act of transformation.

The death of my oldest son in 2021 at the age of twenty-four brought the deepest grief I have ever known. Nothing prepares a parent for that loss. Yet by then I had spent decades inhabiting this painted world of compassion, trust, and interdependence. The understanding that had slowly emerged through my work became a lifeboat, carrying me through the darkest period of my life. Painting did not erase grief, but it reminded me that love continues to exist alongside it.

Today, I understand that every painting is an invitation into that world—a world where beings recognize one another, where vulnerability is met with kindness, and where the boundaries between humans, creatures, and nature dissolve into relationships of mutual care.

If viewers leave my work feeling, even for a moment, that such a world is possible—that love, trust, joy, and belonging can exist between all living beings—then the paintings have done what they have always been trying to do.

My earliest influences were the illustrations of John R. Neill, from “The Lost Princess of Oz”, Medieval Russian Icons, and Hieronymus Bosch. Japanese prints and Chinese scrolls were a part of my early life, as my father had been given some replicas as gifts. Hokusai in particular is an artist I feel a continuing affinity towards. As a young adult I became fascinated with the Blue Rider group and the art of Gabrielle Munter. I have always loved the paintings of Goya because of his imaginative horrific beauty, awkward compelling compositions, and his courageous brushwork. In a more contemporary vein, amidst many painters I admire are Edward Hopper, Sigmar Polke, Amy Sherald,  Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Kerry James Marshall.