How did
you become a designer/artist?
I've always drawn alot, and always been fascinated
with painting and sculpture, but it wasn't until
I was about 19 that I made a commitment to study
art, to earn a BFA. I studied illustration for
a couple years, realized I had no interest,
and threw myself into painting. I realized that
painting to me was all about mystery, and that
pre-verbal evocative quality that painting has;
just the opposite of spelling everything out,
telling a clear story, which is what illustration
is all about. I haven't looked back, except
to laugh. Painting's been the center of my life
for probably six or seven years now. I've been
lucky; I am doing exactly the work I want to
do at any given time, and people have been responding
to it.
Where are you from originally?
I'm a Bay Area native, born and raised in San
Jose, CA, and I've lived here in San Francisco
for the last nine years. All my family is on
the East Coast, so I feel a connection to New
England and North Carolina. My ancestry is Dutch,
and I'd like to spend more time in Holland in
the future; I was just there over the summer.
What are you doing now?
Right now I am painting full time, and trying
to both deepen and expand existing bodies of
work. More medium to large scale minimal landscapes,
trying to bring several bodies of work closer
together, and distill what's important from
the images I keep revisiting. Working slowly,
and deliberately, with many layers. I'm working
on a diptych, a painting of my family that I
am excited about. Teaching a little bit.
What are your plans for the future?
To continue to paint, and perhaps to teach at
the college level. That's a little more long
term, though. I am finishing up work for a solo
exhibit here at San Francisco's 66 Balmy Gallery,
entitled "Small Fires in the Distance".
That will be in November of 2005. Also I'll
be having a solo show, likely a sort of survey
of various works, at Boston's MPG Contemporary,
in March 2006. I'd like to make a book or two
of my work; that's a more lasting way of showing
the work to people than a three-week exhibit,
and more broadly affordable. I intend to get
back into doing some more figurative works.
I'll probably focus on that in about a month.
I'll be doing a residency at the Vermont Studio
Center, which is pretty exciting. Beyond that,
I can't see the future so it can be hard to
talk about.
What American artist inspires you most?
To pick only one is hard but it has to Andrew
Wyeth. His work is just incredible, totally
suffused with patience and feeling. Some of
my other favorite contemporary painters are
Sophie Jodoin, Alex Kanevsky, Stuart Shils,
and Antonio Lopez Garcia. And of course all
my friends here in the Bay Area, too many to
mention.
What unlocks your creativity?
Nature, first and foremost. Light and space.
Keeping my eyes open. Music. |
