I think of my painting practice as an act of faith. Brush in hand, I lean into the blank paper, or panel — and listen. In the space between fear and certainty, the painting emerges—color, texture, shape, image, wax, ink, oil—eventually, a story is revealed—rare and ready—claiming a life of its own.

I work in oil, cold wax, and encaustic. My work grows out of an internal relationship with landscape, memory, and the idea that our lives, like paintings, are built through disruption, change, and repair.

My process is intuitive and physical. I begin without a fixed plan and let the interaction of color, shape, and texture guide decisions. In my oil and cold wax work, I mix oil paint with cold wax medium to create a dense, workable surface that I apply to paper or gessoed panels using scrapers, rollers, brayers, and sometimes my hands. I often incorporate materials such as dry pigments, ink, pencil, oil sticks, and occasionally unconventional elements like metal leaf or roofing tar.

My encaustic work involves layering pigmented beeswax and resin, fusing each layer with heat, then carving, scraping, and reworking the surface. In both mediums, the real work often begins when I start removing rather than adding—scraping back layers, dissolving passages, and allowing earlier marks to reappear. This push and pull between building up and breaking down is central to my practice.

I am especially interested in what happens when something interrupts the surface—lines that resist, shapes that disrupt, textures that suggest something buried beneath. These moments create tension and resolution, much like the unexpected turns in our own lives.

The landscapes that influence me most are the deserts, mountains, and open spaces of the Pacific Northwest and Southwest. While I am drawn to their scale and drama, I am just as interested in quieter details: erosion patterns, weathered surfaces, shifting light, and the evidence of time. These experiences combine with memory and emotion to form paintings that feel more like inner landscapes than literal places.

Ultimately, my work is about resilience. Through layering, disruption, and repair, each painting becomes a record of change and persistence. I am not trying to illustrate a specific place or story, but rather to create work that feels discovered rather than constructed—something honest, weathered, and quietly human.

Here’s my artist CV

I’ve spent my life searching for a home for my creative spirit. I’ve worked professionally as an actor, I’ve made a living as a writer, and I became a glassblower. I guess you could say I’ve been an “emerging” artist for most of my life. Not anymore. I am a painter. Full stop. End of story.

Representation

Gallery 114 (gallery114.com) in Portland, Oregon. Member since 2025.

Shows, Exhibitions, Galleries & More

2026

Gallery 114, South Gallery Show, March

Gallery 114 New Member Show, February

2025

Gallery 114 December Members’ show

Lake Oswego Art in the Park

2024

Gallery 114 Group Exhibit “Beneath the Surface”

Lakewood Center for the Arts “My Happy Place — The Small Works Show”

Lake Oswego Art in the Park

Corvallis Fall Festival

Portland Open Studios

Just Bob

Astonish Magazine Group Show

Creative Spirits Gallery

Gallerium Online Gallery Group Exhibit “Elysium”

2023

Local 14 Art Show

Lake Oswego, Art in the Park

Included in House & Garden’s “Art Edit”

2022

Las Laguna Art Gallery, Los Angeles

Portland Open Studios

2014

Second Annual Encaustic Exhibit, Pacific Northwest College of Art

Training

2008-2011 Pacific Northwest College of Art, Encaustic coursework with Jef Gunn

Workshops:

  • Timothy McDowell – Encaustic

  • Lisa Pressman – Encaustic & Oil and Cold Wax

  • Mark Rediske  – Encaustic

  • Margot Voorhies Thompson – Collage

  • Patricia Seggebrook – Encaustic

  • Nicholas Wilton – Encaustic/Acrylic

  • Andrea Schwartz-Feit – Encaustic

  • Serena Barton – Oil & Cold Wax