Bio

My artistic interest began as a poet in my early teens.  The wires in my brain are a little crossed and when I recite poetry they take on colors in my brain. Being colorblind the colors may not be what you perceive but they are still colorful and meaningful to me. Poetry to me is a verbal painting. My interest in learning to paint originally began with wanting to capture the poetry in paint to create Ekphrastic paintings and cover for a future poetry and short story books. 

 

I quickly learned that my interest in painting took over my life as I realized that a painting was itself a poem so the two to me seem inseparable. My first painting was a sunset that I saw in Krabi, Thailand. My younger sister who enjoyed painting once a year showed me the basics and saw how much I enjoyed it so gifted me some brushes and paints. Where I really learned to paint was in Houayxai, Laos. I was working as a teacher and after classes for the day I would spend the evenings painting in an unused classrooms. Sometimes I’d paint on the walls and sometimes on paper but would end up falling asleep on the floor each night. It took time but my obsession paid off as I eventually taught myself to paint. When I look at peoples faces sometimes I see the water moving across them and pigment dispersion. Watercolors has become my life. 

If I shared all the creative works before watercolors it would take a novel as I have tried many things and my mind has become obsessed with a lot of different styles but it was watercolors that finally convinced me that I was an Artist.

Earlier in life I have had a multitude of different job titles. I served in the U.S. Army for a time where I became permanently disabled. I later earned a bachelors in Psychology as well as a Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language. Nowadays I spent my time painting, writing poetry and teaching the occasional class online not having children of my own. It is nice to play teacher from time to time to remind myself what the future holds.