I have done some projects that approach the subject of travel as a metaphor. From hiking and enjoying nature and through movies, I am inspired to recreate landscapes from my drawings with the visual and expressive qualities of woodcut. My work has literary and cinematic influences from which I build an image, using them like a window, built with scenes of urban environments, and with elements of everyday life such as automobiles and characters who wander paths of uncertainty.

It is only a matter of time.  San Francisco will be hit by “the next big one” and a major earthquake will return our city to dust.

I was living in New England where natural disasters melt in the morning when I heard about Hurricane Katrina. I could not understand.  New Orleans is in a precarious position. It is likely that it will be hit again. Why rebuild?
Then I moved to San Francisco, equally precariously perched on the San Andreas fault. I fell in love with the city.  And now I get it. When the next earthquake comes I’ll be here rebuilding. When the next big earthquake takes our buildings down I will be here to rebuild.  Here’s the plan:

Anyone can go onto underscoreg.com/quake and submit a location-based memory.  What places in San Francisco are important to you? Where do you walk your dog? Where did you get proposed to? Where do you get the best avocados? Put these memories on the map. I’m pulling together a group of artists working in all mediums who will make original commissions from these memories.  I am compiling these works in neighborhood based shows, online, and in a book.  This book will be our guide. The morning after the next big earthquake we will get up, dust off this book and look to it as our guide for rebuilding the city.  We will rebuild San Francisco from art.

In accordance with this project my work is almost entirely inspired by San Francisco and the stories I hear here.  I work primarily in paint. I have found it an effective language for translating stories into art.  I do not restrict myself to a style or school as different memories and places hold different demands. By allowing anyone to submit a location-based memory I have opened up the commission process to a new audience allowing those who can not purchase art a deeply personal art experience.   I am always looking for other artists who want to adopt the mission of artistically capturing San Francisco. If you want to get involved as an artist or submit a location-based memory check out underscoreg.com/quake

We will rebuild San Francisco from art.

My love of photography began in my youth during a summer job in Yellowstone Park. The incredible majesty of the Rocky Mountains provided an inspiration that remains to this day. It soon became apparent that photography would be the center of my life, so I decided to study at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California. I graduated in 1978 with the technical skills that are mandatory to produce quality work. 

My commercial photography led to the establishment of studios first in Los Angeles, and later in San Francisco. Much of my effort over the last 30 years has been in nurturing my commercial business, in order to succeed in an incredibly competitive arena. That success has allowed me to pursue my first love, the landscape. 

My photographs are the result the artist’s eye combined with the latest technologies in fine archival printing. An artist's vision will always be the most important element in the creation of beautiful imagery. For a photographer, this translates into a sense of awareness of light and design, of finding simplicity in chaos. In the random explosion of shape and color that is all around us, one must discern those brief moments that will result in a strong two dimensional image. 

Vision alone, however, will not yield elegant results. A photographer must have an extensive knowledge of his tools and craft to reproduce his concepts. My earlier images were produced with film up to 4x5 inches in size, but I now work exclusively with very high end digital cameras to produce the high resolution, finely detailed prints I demand. The digital file is refined to reproduce what I visualized at the time of exposure, much the same as traditional photographers might use filters or darkroom techniques to accomplish their vision. 

Numerous test prints are then made to determine the final image. Prints are made with a Lightjet printer onto Fuji Crystal Archive paper, producing true silver halide images with a color gamut and sharpness that far surpasses traditional photographic prints, with an estimated minimum life of 70 years. 

All prints are mounted using acid free rag board and signed by the artist, to provide years of enjoyment.

Photographs capture a moment in time that allows for reflection and understanding of the world around me. The most satisfying comment I hear about my images is that they transport the viewer to some other place, real or imagined.   

I try to keep my life as creatively balanced and chaotic as much as I can--hoping they may cancel each other out. I am an evolving creature and need the room to evolve in life. 

I have attempted and dabbled in many forms of the art realm from sketching, painting, sculpting, spoken word, and performance art in an audio-digital format but photography has always nudged me along the way. Asking me to dance and refused each time.

It was intimidation that kept me at bay. I found a box of old photographs from the earlier years in the Navy/ San Francisco days and saw another world unfold. I have been on a constant experimentation of being a viewer through the lens. My connection to the freeze frame became solidified and captured my soul.

  My paintings are an ongoing exploration of the spaces where "inner" and "outer" meet, whether the setting be human or celestial. From the mysteries and metaphors that I find in familiar subjects, such as my ships and dancers, to my cosmological studies of a complex and seemingly impersonal universe -- in the heart of my creations lies the familiar made abstract, and the distant made intimate. 

A note on the "Inner Space" series:
I am fascinated with the analogy of space with human consciousness. The vastness of space, with its mysterious and oft-dazzling beauty, and the highly complex "inner space" of human consciousness form the focus of my work. Layers of color and texture illuminate my visions of planets and stars as points in a vast continuum, radiating life and emotion of their own. I think of each painting as the result of various “encounters” with these places, revealed in boldly colorful, multi-dimensional and sometimes sensual paintings that simultaneously evoke a sense of space intertwined with psychic tension.