I am a native Arizonian. I was born in Tucson, Arizona in 1938; and was raised in both Camp Verde and Tucson. My Mother was a talented steel guitar musician, I was raised an only child, there is 17 years between my brother and myself; we lived in a homestead home with no power until my father wired the home for electricity in the late 1930’s to the early 1940’s. In our Tucson home we had a well that needed priming before you could pump water. We had a great view of the Catalina Mountains from our front porch.

In Camp Verde I lived with my Grand Folks on their farm. The only heat we had in the home was the wood burning cook stove in the kitchen. My Father was fighting on the Pacific front in WW II at this time.

My art started when I was in grade school, I did lots of drawings, then I took an art course by mail; which I must say was not very good. After high school, I went into the Service for the next 10 years as a Navy deep-sea diver. After the Navy I went to work for the State of Arizona, at which time I started taking lessons in watercolor; however with all the traveling I had to do, I did not have time to keep up with my watercolors.

After retiring from the State of Arizona, I took up watercolor, Acrylic, and oil again at Yavapai College; I have been doing watercolor since 1994, acrylic and oil since 2013, taking classes and workshops. I enjoyed doing portraits and painting from live models more than landscapes or still lives. I have started painting in H2O oil paints and acrylics. I have received a number of rewards for my portraits; in the fine arts of the Nation’s Veterans of American fine art shows. I also have a number of works in private collections.

I moved back into Arizona after my services, I now live in Clarkdale, Arizona where I have retired after 28 years of working for the State of Arizona.

In 2016 I had a stroke and have not performed any art until Late 2017, I cannot paint portraits anymore due to the shakes that I have now, I have started painting abstracts which I do enjoy and can get lost in the painting as I am doing the painting.