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Growing up in northern Ohio in the 70’s, before the age of rampant development,
I was fortunate to live in a place where I was close to nature, first on the edge
of acres of woods, and later, close to a national park. It’s probably why nature
features so prominently in my artwork. In the 80’s I attended Kent State University,
majoring in painting and printmaking, but art took a back seat to marriage and
children in the 90’s.
In 1997 I pulled out my pastels and started working again, mostly because they did not
have the chemical impact that oil paints had, and discovered that they were not just
for preliminary sketches. While at KSU I had the good fortune to take a class with a
professor by the name of Joseph Culley who encouraged us to experiment with different
mediums. From these experiments came my earliest pastels. Some of my work is featured
here in the gallery, and
here for sale in my store.
He also taught an awesome materials
and techniques class, where we made our own encaustic paints, gessoes, paper and books.
Making art (literally) from scratch intrigued me, there is something comforting in using
processes that have been around as long as art has.
Photography, which initially was a way for me to capture the short lived beauty of my
stilllifes became another passion of mine, and my photographs are featured in a
gallery here and should you wish to
purchase a print, here in my store.
So how about the glass? While in college, usually late at night, I used to haunt the
glass blowing shop, run by the esteemed Henry Hallem. Since I was not a sculpture major,
I was never able to get into the glassblowing class, but I was fascinated by the process
and spent every free minute I had there watching the students work. In those days I
contented myself with watching, and later, with collecting antique and contemporary
glass. Then I had an opportunity to take a lampworking class at a local studio and I
was hooked.
After countless hours into the night, and many failed (and many successful) experiments,
I have found a medium that offers a depth that two dimensional mediums never could. I use
Moretti , CIM, Lauscha and Vetrofond glass, all carefully annealed in a Paragon Bluebird
XL kiln. Lampwork has been around for thousands of years, and we still use the same basic
processes that the earliest lampworkers started off with three thousand years ago. I guess
it really appeals to my interest in ancient processes while allowing the creativity and
design sense of each artist to make every artist’s work uniquely different.
I am lucky enough to still live in northern Ohio, close to a beautiful national park,
that inspires me every day.
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