I made my first on location, plein air, painting in 1973. My influences then were the French Impressionist, mostly Monet, Pissarro and Sisley. At the time I was working full time and attending art classes at Chaffey Community College in Southern California. I was born and raised in Ontario California, about 35 miles east of Los Angeles. By the summer of 1975 I decided to become a full time painter. I quit my job, left school and moved to Santa Cruz in Northern Ca. I always loved the northern part of the state and wanted to get away from everything I knew up to that point and start a fresh life as a painter. I think I had about $5,000 dollars in my bank account. In my mind, enough money to make a start at really exploring and trying to learn how to paint. My work at the time was very rough but I had no doubt that I would grow and survive.

After a couple of years I move further north to Humboldt County and have remained here, with a couple of adventures elsewhere, since 1977. Humboldt is where my education as a painter really started. There were several painters in the area whom I met through a life drawing group. Three of them, Curtis Otto, James Moore and George Van Hook became close friends as well as the three painters I learned so much from for the next few years. We painted daily together and George and I shared a studio for a couple of years. Working so closely with artists beyond ones own level was such a great way to learn to see.