INTRODUCTION

    Welcome to my website. I'm still working on fine tuning the site, and even in the last few weeks I have added a number of new works. I will be constantly doing so and working to improve this website. Any inquires concerning the artwork are welcome, and all the artwork is for sale unless otherwise noted. I grew up on the far east side of Cleveland, Ohio. At that time it was a blue collar neighborhood. Growing up it seemed like all the adults my Fathers age were veterians of the Second World War, and just about every other house had an old person living in it that spoke no English except a few choice swear words. My Mother immigrated as a young person from Lithuania. My Father grew up in Barton, Ohio which is a small town near the Ohio River in southeasten Ohio. His Father and Mother immigrated from Slovakia. My grandfather spent his entire life as a coal miner in Barton, but still managed to raise a batch of kids and live into his 80's. At the age of twelve I started doing watercolors and also started taking two busses to the Cleveland Museum of Art at least once a month. I went on to study art and graduated from The Cleveland Institute of Art, Cooper School of Art, Kent State University, and Cleveland State University. I also lived in Japan for seven years. While there I taught English conversation and exhibited my artwork . Some of the cities I lived in were Yonago, Matsue ( the first place in Japan where the writer Lafcadio Hearn lived ) , Fukuoka, Okazaki, and Osaka ( with a Monbukagakusho Scholarship which is a prestigious academic scholarship offered by the Japanese Ministry of Education ).   Soon after my time in Japan I met my wife Marian  in Cleveland and we married, and relocated to the western part of Washington State. For a while we lived in an old art deco condo in Seattle, but we also had a house in a small town of 300 people named Suquamish. That town had a strong Suquamish Tribe presence and it turned out to be a short distance from a number of locations used in the filming of Twin Peaks. Now we own a house in Cleveland Heights. The previous owner of the home  was a master gardener, and the small backyard is a constant source of wonder. The plants that turn up are not the typical backyard plants, or the ones I see at big garden centers, or even the ones we come across in the rural parks we go to.  Watching the plants grow, keeping back things growing in, seeing the various insects and visitors and intruders that creep in, is to me is an opportunity for learning, as well as an interesting visual microcosm.  Of course I love doing my artwork and being an art instructor to adults.  I learned a lot from the many fine instructors I had over the years, but I learned even more from the few that were less than fine. From them I learned what not to do as an art instructor.