BEFORE…
Before I made murals and posters, back when I was searching for a way to be an artist in the world, I made landscapes. Initially they were all from life, later they came as much from my imagination as they did actual places. Inspired by mentors Bobbie Mckibbin and Al Pounders, and later influenced by darker visions of the family farm crisis, I found a way to connect with places I had never known growing up on the north side of Chicago. This work began in 1988 and continued through graduate school, first at Purdue and then, after a life changing apprenticeship at Rose Valley Farm near Rochester, NY, at the University of Kansas until 1992.
