I consider myself primarily a landscape painter. Growing up in Ohio, I had brave parents who thought nothing of piling four young kids in the car for long road trips. I quickly learned how to tune out the chaos in the car by focusing on the scenery whizzing by, and this seems to have triggered a lifelong interest in all things topographic. 

 

When we moved to upstate New York, and later Virginia, my mother (a lifelong painter) often took me with her to scout estate auctions. I was fascinated by the local folk art, with its stoicism and odd perspectives; its elevation of the mundane to the mythic. I decided to try creating one of these strange paintings myself. It sold, and this somehow convinced me that I could become a painter. 

 

Over time, I've come to approach painting as an act of creating my own topography, my own myth. There is often a contemplative stillness and focus to my subjects. My process involves building up the surface of a painting with oil ground, followed by layers of oil paint mixed with cold wax. These layers, in turn, are rubbed or scraped, revealing underlying colors and creating subtle surface variations.

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After earning a degree in art history with a minor in studio art from Swarthmore College, I had a vague notion that I would go on to study art restoration and work in a museum. But the need to pay off student loans intervened, and I ended up on another path. In the back of my mind, there was always a singular goal: to eventually live by the sea and paint full-time. And finally, here we are.

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