Art is my third career, and my happiest. My first career was as a lawyer, specializing in the legal rights of children. My second was as an author and publisher. I painted occasionally during those years, but always as a hobby. In 1996, I decided to get serious about my painting, and studied for several years at the Art Students League and, more recently, with Rob Vander Zee at the Vander Zee School of Painting in Old Town Alexandria, VA.
I’ve always been someone who thinks outside the box, perhaps because I’m not so adept at thinking inside it. Art is the ideal career for thinking outside the box, but that wasn’t so apparent to me during my early training at the Art Students League. The formal education in how to be an artist bore some of those “inside the box” qualities that I’ve always rebelled against. In time, however, as my confidence grew, I began to feel free to express the inner me, and I allowed my imagination to carry me away. Perhaps too far. It was Rob Vander Zee’s tutelage that enabled me to find the right balance: bringing some order to my work while retaining its free spirit.
In 2007, I graduated from the Vander Zee School of Painting and now, I continue developing and building my style and themes in painting.