Bio
I've mostly lived in two primary locations Oklahoma and Tennessee. I'm originally from Tishomingo, Oklahoma and an region called Texoma, which is the area that boarders central Oklahoma and Texas. I am half Chickasaw Indian and grew up in the culture of the Chickasaw Indian Nation. As a young boy I spent time growing up on the rural land my grandparents owned. Hunting in our wooded land and fishing in Blue river which flows through the property. I learned about my ancestors and how they farmed, hunted, and fished to provide for themselves. Which instilled in me the respect for nature. In the 1970's my parents moved to Nashville, TN and I was introduced to "City" life and music.
My earliest interest in art as a boy came from MAD magazine and other comic books. I would attempt to draw the comic characters. I also like how the text copy was dressed up or had some action graphic around it "POW!", "WHAM!". Although I rarely actually read the stories. I did not find the stories very interesting except for MAD and CRACKED magazines now those were funny and clever.
In the back of the magazines there were these advertisements if you can draw the characters you could win prize money. I entered the contest, I was about 13 years old, several weeks later I received a response that said something like my drawing was very good but I was too young to qualify for a scholarship, but the letter explained that I should continue drawing and apply again when I was eligible. This was probably the thing that gave me confidence to eventually pursue art.
During my formative years I moved around a lot. I went to three different high schools, California, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. After H.S. graduation I attended the University of North Texas in Denton, TX for commercial art and graphic design. After a year I could no longer afford the out-of-state tuition and cost of living. I spent a couple years in junior college which had minimal art instruction graduated then started working in the music industry. My other passion is playing guitar although I never had any real success playing I did find jobs in the business I could use my creativity. I worked for a record label in New York designed artwork for records, tapes, CD's, and promotional materials. During that time I met my wife and started a family which the job was not going to be financially sufficient. I went back and got a BA in Fine Arts and got a job working for the United States Postal Services in Multimedia. At this time technology was exploding and becoming accessible to the average person. Which led to an opportunity for me and my family to move back to Nashville. Over the past 20 years I have maintained a technology job I have also have continued to be creative through the mediums of painting, graphic design, and photography. I now have a strong desire to re-focus on the traditional medium of oil painting.
