I’ve been a painter since age four. I remember painting with watercolors on large scraps of paper—and drying them on a heat radiator in my parent’s farmhouse kitchen. I’ve been fascinated with the way colors interact with each other ever since.

In childhood, I had a paintbrush in my hand more than a pencil and painted on every surface I could possibly find. And at age sixteen, I convinced my dad to let me paint a covered wagon scene on the side of a large shed facing the road. After that endeavor, I had a nearly full-time mural painting business in the midst of completing high school and college.

Naturally, I majored in Fine Arts; concentrating in drawing and painting. . .but it wasn’t until upper level courses did I truly learn to express myself through paint under the tutelage of the late Al Pounders, Professor Emeritus of Painting at Purdue University.

In recent years, I’ve been drawn to capturing the changing skyscapes of The Little River Valley. (It’s a historic wetland corridor carved by glacial meltwater and stretches for twenty-two miles along the Little River into an adjacent county.)

I’ve lived in this valley for more than thirty years, and I’ve observed the various moods of the skyscapes created by atmospheric density: crimson red changing to yellow ochre to deep violet within a matter of minutes on some days. It’s magical.

It’s a sanctuary of beauty and serenity in the midst of an ugly and chaotic world. It’s a place where I become fully alive and can touch, for fleeting moments, the glory of the majestic beyond this life.