I keep painting because I can't. it's impossible. to look at a landscape with its infinite detail, color and expanse and then, distracted by thought and emotion, to squeeze all of that onto a tiny canvas with the clumsy tool of a paintbrush is simply impossible. there is no end to painting. there is no right, and I find my freedom in that. i love that.
when i paint i am looking for what it is that I am seeing, what I'm feeling, and what I remember. It makes me look harder. I find what's surprising in things and look for the pattern that interests me. I try to work it all out on my canvas until i finally find the rhythm and relationships in those patterns that look like my experience.
i've spent most of my life in either the boston area or in provincetown, cape cod, and i've recently added northern vermont and western massachusetts to the list. i've spent a short bit of time living in albuquerque, nm, and a longer stint in chicago.
i began my undergraduate studies at Brown University. about half way through i transferred to Wellesley College, where i received a degree in Computer Science in 2000. in 2005 i earned my second degree for studio arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
my career path started in construction when i was just about big enough to hold my father's hammer. since then i've worked with horses, as an auto mechanic, teacher, computer programmer, and as a heavy machinery operator and mechanic. from there my needs for creative problem solving, physical activity, and visual imagination led me into the world of landscaping and environmental design. not only did i find a great match career-wise in this industry i also met my soul-mate, catherine. together we started a successful landscape design company.
i began painting heavily around the same time that i discovered my interest in landscape design. fueled by a passion for color and texture, both activities fed into each other in a great cycle of inspiration... for a while anyway.
a few years into landscape design a couple of things came to light. first, the schedule of a landscaper pretty severely conflicts with that of someone who wants to paint the landscape. bummer. second, i began to notice that i was actually more absorbed in my work when i was developing computer apps for assisting our business, or with my freelance web development work that i had continued doing "on the side", than i was when designing gardens. huh. go figure. although i love gardening and i love plants, it turns out that the medium of the web, of computers, fits me much better.
so following those (and a few other) awakenings, i landed firmly back in my roots of computer programming.
now i get my freedom from painting, my physical from helping catherine landscaping, and my need for clean, organized precision from my world of programming. they all compliment each other well.
and with that, welcome to today. thank you so much for visiting.