Artist Statement
I like to make art because it is fun, exciting and nourishing for my soul. Imagination and thoughts are the underlying force behind my paintings. I use my art to motivate me in life and to evoke emotions. I reflect life around me through my art, tangible and intangible. I explore paths other artists have gone down, and then I veer off and find new territory. I often am able to unveil something completely new and never before seen. Art is my outlet for self-expression, it helps me identify my core or true self. I create art for the joy the process brings me, and the satisfaction it brings the viewer. I create with optimism because it gives me hope. Hope to succeed and to enrich other people’s lives. I believe that there is a fountain of ideas and creativity always waiting to be tapped into. It’s just a matter of knowing yourself in order to tune in to it all. I yearn for that play like feeling when I start a painting. I’m constantly trying to figure out what I need to do to make my best art, in doing that I’m able to share my art with a wider audience. I feel a part of this world when someone stops and ponders one of my paintings. I enjoy pushing my art to a new level, to take the information I’ve learned, process it, and pass it to the next generation of artisans and thinkers. These are all motivating reasons to why I’m an artist.
Artist Approach
I view art as any form of creation, like drawing, writing, building, or playing.
I remember going to the library at a young age and being inspired by all the art and illustrations in children's books. It changed me forever. The imagination I had seen slowly crept into my everyday life. I was soon fascinated with the concept of creating and I began to sketch and draw scenes on my own. I grew up on our family's dairy farm so it was easy for me to find materials and space to expand my imagination. I would carve spears out of tree branches, weave twine into rope, built forts with ladders and try to invent all sorts of contraptions.
I have carried that spark of creativity throughout my entire life and try to use in all forms of evolution.
It is my goal to capture those childhood feelings in my paintings. By recreating a certain sense, I hope to remind the viewer of their own inner child. By taking on new challenges, failing and continually improving, I’m able to show others that the process of creating is an accumulation of learned failures.
