Thank you

Damn this is great! Had to take a moment and zoom in. Fantastic work!

Glad you're here!

So that’s a Cliff Notes version of my artistic voyage through space and time!

I’m so here to tap into the art community to share, inspire and consume as much as I can!

I’d love to hear about your artistic roots and please share some of your work! Here’s a bunch of my wood carvings✌️

Once again GGranny enters the chat. I forgot to mention that GG was also an artist but all self trained. She did everything from painting, knitting, quilling and a master 4th of July float decorator

I always admired her quilling when I was too stupid to appreciate it fully.

I’ve played around with different things. I continued to paint and draw but needed more so I took up wood carving. Man this was fun when I was going full throttle. I’d be in the garage 8-10 hours a day on the weekends. I’d still do it but we moved and lost space to do it.

Now I needed another!

All this time though, I was always an artist first. That’s why I still needed to have some sort of art to really call my own. I still had some freedom in my graphic design realm but you are creating for someone else. It’s not coming directly from your artist’s soul! I know you artists get it.

I went to school across the river so all my family came. Grandparents, parents, cousins, friends of my parents you name it.

Guess who the two who were that didn’t have much issue?

Sucked growing up in conservative Midwest so I set off on the wild ride that has been advertising.

At our senior art show, it was time to get revenge on those that gave me shit!

I’m dating myself here but the 1993 Janet Jackson Rolling Stone magazine has just come out. So instead of a regular portrait photo everyone else was doing, I recreated this!

Now that the parental units could see a path they left me alone.

If I could relive those days again, I would. He had a battalion of talented artists and they were all awesome people I still cherish today. Our academic advisor/artist/teacher was one of our best friends. He was always around.

These long threads are exhausting.

I knew my parents did not approve. All I heard was what kind of real job could an artist get? Lots of support, I know, that’s why it’s all about my grandmas.

I had a fucking plan!

Additionally I went and added a Communications major.

My freshman year in college, I enrolled in 2 classes (lecture/lab). Two being the key number here. That’s how many weeks it took me to drop them both and change my major. I went home for Sunday dinner and announced emphatically, “I’m going to major in Studio Art!” Let’s just say it didn’t go well.

I took every art class in school and added architectural drafting. I was quite good actually and loved the perfection of lines, the symmetry, and telling a story that someone could read.

At the time, that sealed the deal. I was going to be an architect just like my uncle.

Fast forward one year➡️

We called her GGranny because when I started a family (that’s a whole other story and a totally different vibe, but with a good ending) she was our OG man! She had our back.

It wasn’t just me. She did the same thing and probably much more for my youngest cousin and he’s become an amazing artist!

My maternal grandma though, she was the great motivator. She never missed an opportunity to comment on a drawing, buy supplies, etc. She also had his crazy work ethic and could not sit still for 15 minutes. Unfortunately she passed that along to me as well.

I was extremely lucky to have grandmothers who took interest and helped feed my artistic soul.

My paternal grandmother was a true artist. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was a really talented painter. They had a lake cottage and it was filled with her paintings.

I can’t read it without singing 😂