I have been an artist since I can remember and 90% of the time, even as a youth, people were the subject matter. My first formal lessons were at the age of 16. Istavan Valahovics was my teacher. He was a landscape painter and often told me to focus on landscape first and learn how to paint people later. There were always people in my landscapes, and he just laughed and finally accepted their presence. I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1980 from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The 70’s were an era of conceptual art. I struggled a bit with the conceptual and was less prolific. An argument in one class was that portrait painting is not original because the subject is original. Ultimately after college I worked on finding the balance of representational painting with abstract and conceptual themes. It took some time and experimentation, and ultimately a decision that it doesn’t matter. I love portraits and people, and I do not need to worry about judgement.

I painted on Maui for a while, which is where the concept of the series called THE MELTING POT was developed. It began by painting mismatched fabrics symbolizing the beauty of diversity. I incorporated people in all 10 of the pencil modelos. The evolution of the series was as follows:

1) Simply White, featuring a white female nude on mismatched fabrics.

2) Simply Black, a black male nude on mismatched fabrics.

3) Euro American, is a seated white male nude featuring fabrics to represent

different cultures.

4) Afro American featured a seated black woman featuring fabrics from diverse

cultures

5) The Fabric of Humanity features anatomical and ethic facial anatomy from all

over the world. The hundred or so faces are on red, white, or blue backdrops

and include expressions, ages, and vocations as diverse as I could provide. The

world rests in the middle. This is about the beauty of humanities diversity.

6) Music is represented in this piece as a quality shared by most cultures

7) The Triumph of the Spirit over Materialism is a twist on a painting from the 16th

century painting of Sisters . In this piece textiles are still mismatched and the

Sisters represent the sisterhood of all women.

8) Shadows is a painting about time. It features a shadow of extinct cultures, youth

and age. The human race shares these things in common.

9) Genesis is about spirituality.

10) Family

More artwork are in progress. I can pretty much promise people will be the crown feature.

Including an Art Experiment to be shared with participation of the community in Santa Fe.

More to come…..