Art is an escape. It not only helps me to release stress and anxiety, but also brings me joy. Working with my hands in the most delicate of ways is therapeutic and relaxes my mind. I love the feeling of being able to take a wad of clay, a blank piece of paper, or even weathered pallet wood, and create something that it would have never been. I enjoy taking a closer look at objects and even people that are often overlooked. Looking deep into the fine detail is a way to escape reality for just a moment. When I am working on a project, I tend to work very delicately with colors, shadows, and highlights. I love the moment when I am able to take a step back and see how the time spent in every intricate detail completes the final outcome of the big picture. This is not only the way I work on artwork, but also the way I aspire to go about my daily life. Every day is one of the small details, and the effort that is put into them will determine the end result.
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"Great things are done by |
Nature has always fascinated me; the variety of colors that you can see in just one landscape, the intense power of a storm that can quickly fade into a lovely sunset, and even the animals that are able to withstand the harshest conditions. These are where I get my inspirations. The goal in my artwork was to take a closer look at objects in nature that are so common to us and often overlooked. The intricate pattern of bark on the trees shown in “Stump Trio,” and the people that have worked so hard with the land to provide for others as I have shown in the intimate painting, “Papa.” One aspect about nature that I love is the fact that it is constantly changing. The sunflowers shift as they follow the sun throughout the day as seen in “Sunflower Series.” The sky can change colors in a matter of seconds. The life of a hard-working man can be taken from this earth in the midst of time.
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In my artwork, I have attempted to freeze time. This may be to go back in time to the simpler ways of the West of “American Frontier,” to capture a tree as it is being taken out of the ground by a raging storm in “Creating Destruction,” or even to give life back to an animal that has passed on, as seen in “The Big One” and “Wanderlust.” I would like the viewers of my artwork to take the time to enjoy the life around them. When you take a walk outside, look at all of the beautiful colors in the landscape, the creatures that you see everyday but never really look at, and never take for granted the people that surround you. Nothing ever stays the same, so appreciate what you see while it is there.
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