Work
The work I create reaches back to the roots of humanity. Things we all relate to regardless of culture, language, or nation. People, animals, the natural world, elements that reflect deep in all of us even if we've forgotten them. A push against the noise and saturation of modern life, the work aims to create stillness and serve as a breath that connects us back to what we once all were, people living simply.
Myself
My life has followed two distinct paths, shaped by heritage and family. My father’s side, rough hardworking. Longshormen, hunters, fishermen, strong and moral people. Generations of athletes, my father, uncles, and cousins all excelled in this world. It wasn't an expectation as much as it was an inevitability. Baseball served as my life's purpose, my worth and perception of who I was derived from it. Many years, sleepless nights, joys, bruises, and pains, went into this next sentence, but its simpler to just say I played through college, then reached the professional level, playing in the minor leagues in reach of a higher goal. Then one day it ended, and with that I was untethered from a path l'd been on as long as I could remember. The split is sudden and jarring, you're left to find a new version of yourself.
My mothers side came from an opposite world. Artists, educators, intellectuals, people of a higher refinement. How these two families came together I'm uncertain but grateful. In the background of my days in baseball I filled the time with this side of myself. Drawing, painting, building, making. It was where I was happiest. When my career in sports ended, it became time to explore this side and see if there was anything of worth inside me there. I painted aimlessly for a year or so, naively thinking something practical was needed. I enrolled in the local universities design program, planning to get a degree and work for Nike down the road in my home city of Portland Oregon. This felt like an acceptable meshing of my two lives. Somewhere along the line I discovered I had a innate sense of design, I excelled in the program, and was encouraged by staff to venture out into the design world on my own, saying if I failed I could always come back and finish the degree. That leap of faith birthed a sharp rise in fulfillment and success in my life. The freedom of being alone allowed for more creative play than any typical agency design roll I’d have otherwise fallen into. Art and design blended back and forth until one became difficult to recognize from the other. I now toe the line between the commercial success of my work and the desire to protect and elevate it through the fine arts world.