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I wasn’t an artist; at least, that’s what a teacher once told me. To this day, I still don’t have formal art education. In contrast to an artist who came up through a traditional or classic art career, I view myself as a self-taught, intuitive or instinctual, emotionally expressive, contemporary artist. My “education” includes experiences of being a veteran, husband, father, addict, homeless person . . . . 20 years ago my world was dangerous, destructive, painful, dark and hopeless. Back then I saw my art as I saw myself – flawed – and threw it away.
Today I see my art as therapy for my mind and soul. I began throwing color down again in 2003. My world now isn’t dark but full of color, and adding to that color brings me joy and inner peace. Many of my paintings are abstract explosions, rivers and clouds of color; others are my impressions of scenes and creatures from nature. I remember the beauty of a sunset, of the ocean . . . . I sometimes include the phrase “Color My World” in my artist’s statements because of this influence of color not just in my art but in my life in general.
I’m an active person who loves to be outdoors. The colors I see there are what feeds my creativity. Motorcycle road trips on the Minnesota back roads, camping along the Mississippi – all these and more are followed by painting colors of horizons, sunsets, storms and aspects of nature that I saw or experienced.
I don’t stand at an easel to paint; I sit on the floor in a studio in a 19th century shoe factory-turned-loft blocks from the Mississippi. I'm struck by the ability of color to add to the beauty of anything, to strike awe into the human heart, and to elevate the human mood and spirit. To depict that somehow in my paintings is my constant desire and passion.
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