About the artist

I graduated from Canton South High School in Canton, Ohio, in the Academic Art Program, and  received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Commercial Art from Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.

During high school, I took art lessons at the Canton Art Museum which, at that time, was in the old McKinley Mansion, which is no longer there.  My specialty was portraiture, and during high school my portraits of students, faculty members, and guest speakers were given to them as gifts at award ceremonies.

After college I became a pioneer in using colored pencil as a fine art medium, colored pencil being used primarily by commercial artists at that time.  Preferring colored paper over white I did my early drawings on matt board, as colored paper was only available for commercial use.  For many years I worked exclusively in colored pencil, and was a member of the Colored Pencil Society of America.  I then began branching into multi-media, and eventually into collage.

Echoing the "garbage can art" movement from the 1960's I have always been interested in the aesthetic quality of things commonplace and ordinary.  My collages reflect that interest, not only in the subject matter chosen, but also in the materials used, preferring found objects and recycled materials whenever possible.