What is your personal artistic motto or mission in a sentence or two?

I try to create an enduring record of a momentary scene of beauty among nature’s visual gifts.

What are three words that describe your style?

How about “still being formed”?  An engineering bent draws me to realism; an emotional bent draws me to color and impressionism. I guess my style must be some mélange of the two.

Where are you coming from and how did you start your artistic journey?

My painting journey is a little bit like hiking the Appalachian Trail – except you never arrive. It entails stops and starts, plodding along, rainy days, slow progress, getting discouraged, quitting and coming back, then sunny days, feeling good, fresh and eager… and all the other ups and downs of a long journey (to a destination that doesn’t even exist anywhere except, vaguely, in my head). I’m mostly – but not entirely – a self-taught Sunday painter. Started 45 years ago copying the impressionists, then moved to trying to copy photos, then finally discovered the freedom that comes from abandoning pretense of skill and conceit and just painting for myself, enjoying my time at the easel.

What inspires you to create? What holds you back?

Seeing a moment of beauty – clouds at sunrise far out to sea, colors in a rolling surf, long shadows, gnarly trees – makes me really grateful for my life and want to try and record it so others can see it too. To boot, painting clears my mind of all cares and worries.

What do you think sometimes holds you back? Competition for time in a busy life. Time at the easel is the price of improvement, yet time at the easel is often hard to find.

What is your favorite piece you have created or favorite art experience, and why?

November Dawn, New Smyrna Beach. Morning civil twilight at the beach is presented in this scene. The day began with fading darks and growing lights in contrasting colors, and sparkles of dawn on the constantly-rolling ocean. Sadly missed but impossible to capture are the roar of the surf and the feel of the sea wind down the beach.

Tell us something positive that has happened to you in the last month?

The best thing that’s happened to me lately in art occurred in November, when, for the first time ever, I sold a plein air painting wet off the easel. My wife and I had traveled to New Smyrna Beach, Florida, for a week. On a painting day (most days in Florida are cycling days) I was working outside at the beach when a man who had stopped to watch said he liked the piece and asked to buy it. What encouragement I found in his impulsive act! (I had to tell him about how long to dry it, when and how to varnish it, etc.)

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