About my Art
I am about as much of an “Outsider Artist” as you can possibly be.
And if you want to know what it’s about, the short answer is
“ The Future “
Though sometimes I’m just having fun.
And I’m not a fan of “Artistic Statements “.
The Art can & should speak for itself.
But for those who want more . . .
As a child I drew, fingerprinted, etc but not more than any other kid. My first love was music and my mom had enough of a classical LP collection to get me started. Eventually I took up the trumpet and discovered prog and fusion. But I wasn’t nearly disciplined enough to become a musician. And there were no art classes for me.
The first name artist I remember being enthusiastic about was Salvador Dali. By the time I got graduate school I had gotten my mind around most of the major Art movements of the 19th and 20th centuries and had a large (and cheap) print of J. William Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs in my room. But in the real world the big influences were probably rock album art of the 1960s and the literary world of fantasy and science fiction (an especial favorite was the Book of the New Sun tetralogy by Gene Wolfe.).
About my third year of graduate school I started drawing and playing around with pastels. Probably as a form of stress release. And I started taking photographs.
As I started work in the world of biotechnology the drawing fell by the wayside but the photography did not. And after I got my hands on a copy of Photoshop it was obvious to me, anyways the whole point of it was to turn photographs into something else. So that’s what I started doing.
When I lived in San Francisco my work made a lot of use of light-zoom photos and symmetry. And I was always looking for a new plugin, or filter treatment to change things up.
Fire Dance. From 2008
December 30th 2008. A more complex light zoom
By the time I got to Colorado I had discovered Mandelbrot 3D and I had installed a windows emulator on my Power Mac to use it. Some of the 3D fractals were nice and precise (e.g. Bonsai ) others were a bit more diffuse and troublesome (e.g Tower of the Lammergeiers ). But they did add a nice new dimension to what I was doing.
Bonsai – from 2012. Very clean
Tower of the Lammergeiers
After my arrival in New Mexico I began with the same methods I had established back when I lived in San Francisco. But I was more concerned with things being precise and well defined. And I started incorporating photos of the flora and fauna you can find out on the trail in the Land of Enchantment. And I added a couple of new plugins to the mix.
The “booth” shot. Inside events are preferred . . .
The biggest change is that I have become more accessible (hence this website). I have exhibited my work at art events throughout the western United States including the Crested Butte Autumn Festival, the Tucson Comic Con, the Las Cruces Renaissance Fair, and lots more. In addition, I serve as Secretary of the Silver City Art Association to help promote and support other artists in Silver City and Grant county.