BIO
I moved away from a small New England town to a sprawling city in the south. This was the 1960s and as the culture shocks kept coming, the world seemed to break apart. Racial tensions were inflamed by the launch of a new and controversial busing program. On television, we witnessed the assassinations of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald, and images of dead soldiers and the bloody conflict in Vietnam. Bad news followed with the Charles Manson cult murders, the deaths at the Altamont Free Concert, and the massacre at Kent State University. All this disturbing violence and the angry protests were broadcast everywhere, and continuously. Although great music, and powerful youth and feminism movements helped smooth out some of the jagged edges, my family still managed to squeeze in three more household moves. By the time the Watergate scandal broke and President Nixon resigned, the Vietnam War finally ended, and Son of Sam completed his serial killings, the cultural turmoil took a rest. But by then, childhood was over.
EDUCATION
Not surprisingly, drawing soothed me. That desire to “make pictures” likely stemmed from an interest in cartoons and comics, television, and magazines. For the little I knew then, Andy Warhol and Pop Art were the beginning of all art history. I expanded my knowledge and discovered new mediums after spending two years at Marietta College in Ohio, and then transferring to Syracuse University in New York, where I graduated with a BFA in Illustration from their College of Visual and Performing Arts. After school, I found a job in New York City, at a time when it was becoming the epicenter of experimental art. Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring were still alive. Working artists such as Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Julian Schnabel, David Salle, and Eric Fischl and many others, were around my age. Being close enough to observe all the creativity coming out of Soho and this “East Village Art Movement,” led me to think this was the best place and the perfect time to kickstart my own painting.