Recognized by art teachers in the early grades of the Detroit Public School System as having artistic talent, I was placed into a gifted students visual art program. I attended a specialized high school where I could continue taking art classes while fulfilling the requirements of a college prep high school education.  My unique high school education included taking drafting classes along with my art curriculum.  I attribute my technical education for contributing to my unique painting methods, as well as the overall structure of my art work.  In retrospect, it has been truly a unique path I followed to arrive at where I am today. I also learned photography while attending an engineering college to support myself in the future.  I began taking photo trips to junk yards, abandoned industrial buildings and mining sites.  I seem to be naturally drawn to the images dating back to my teenage years.  I would eventually turn many of these photos into oil paintings, including Used Cars, painted in 1988.

Following college, I moved to Southern California. While in S. California, I produced several commissioned works, sold several paintings and had my work prominently displayed at local popular public facilities in the Pasadena area.   

After over 4 years of living in S. California, I returned to Michigan.  Once again, working days in my technical field, I soon changed jobs to one where I worked evenings.  This allowed me to do what I really wanted, which was to enroll in an art college.

In 1984 I started taking classes at the University of Michigan School of Fine Arts and Design in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  I would continue with my classes at U of M for 2 years.  In a conversation with one of art professors, he lamented that art school was capable of teaching people to paint, it could not teach people to be artists.  He had concluded that the school had taught me all it could. 

Following my years at U of M I went through a prolific period of work.  Having gained a confidence about my work, I took on several commissions and produced many unique paintings as I explored subject matter and color.  This period from the mid eighties to 1990 resulted in works that I felt had breakthrough qualities like Used Cars and The Grain Silo.  Used Cars would be accepted for exhibition at the Batavia Juried Art Exhibition in 1988.

During the early 1990’s, I concentrated on photographic work, capturing images of urban Americana.  I became fascinated with the abandoned industrial and commercial buildings around the Detroit area.  It was during this period I changed career directions, opting to concentrate in technical writing and machine conceptual design.  This is a very strict discipline of careful creation of text and simple sketches to convey concept and idea.  As the computer and internet took hold, this simplified my job and ultimately allowed me to work at home and share my daily tasks with my art studio work.     

Returning to the easel in the early 2000’s, I started a series of paintings using some of my old photos of abandoned industrial buildings.  I started communicating with Lowell Boileau, a fellow artist, photographer and creator of the award winning website’ “The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit”.  This resulted in, Corner Detail and Inside the Packard Plant.  Both scenes were derived from his photos of the massive but long abandoned Packard Motor Car Company Plant in Detroit.  

2006, I met a photographer from Traverse City who would share with me some of his automotive photos of long abandoned and derelict cars.  This would result in the painting,62 Volvo. 

In late 2006, I was invited to show at a new art gallery, The Tom James Gallery of Fine Art in the upscale suburban Detroit community of Northville.    

In 2008 I completed Curb Service.  A large work that I originally laid-out in 1988.  The subject was derived from a photo I took of an old drive-in in Ypsilanti, Michigan back in the late 1980’s.

Also in 2008, at the urging of family members I started going through two old chests that I had inherited many years ago.  In these old chests I found old photos & photo albums dating from the very early 1920’s all the way up to about 1970.  In all, there were about 100 photos.  These were simple snapshots taken with inexpensive cameras of the time.  There were vacation photos, family gathering photos & individual family member photos.  They documented several generations of my mother’s side of the family.  These photos were largely unknown to us, having been forgotten decades ago.  The fact these photos survived was quite a shock.  Several of these photos possess a simple charm typical of family snapshots.  A few, though amateur in the creation had some serendipitous aspects of professional photography.  I was inspired as I went through these photos.  I found myself carefully selecting those snapshots that had artistic merit.  These would form the basis of a new series of paintings, Family Photos.  In total I plan 8 paintings on this series including a masterful center-piece photo taken sometime in the 1930’s of my great grandmother and her second husband, a proud though aging cowboy in a ten gallon hat who actually drove cattle on the Chisholm Trail, sitting on a porch swing in front of their Kansas clapboard sided house.  It is so classic Depression era, it transcends the generations.  It is reminiscent of Dorothea Lange’s Depression Era photos.    

Summer 2009, Curb Service won Best of Show, Ogemaw Fair

Summer 2009, Spring 1930 won 2nd place, Portrait group, Ogemaw Fair

Fall 2009, Hotel Sign, Route 6 won 1st Place, West Branch Creative Arts Association Autumn Art Show.

Fall 2009, began showing at the Enchante Salon in West Branch, Michigan.