About

I live and paint in a small community on the edge of the Pecos Wilderness in rural Northern New Mexico. After many years on other paths, I’ve found a haven for my life’s work in the serenity of these mountains.

I particularly enjoy landscape painting because of the ineffable quality of the natural world and the tranquility I experience there.  My intent is to capture the beauty of a moment in the life of a place.   I am especially drawn to locations with little evidence of human activity, although buildings and animals sometimes figure in a quiet way in my paintings.  I love the tension of storm clouds moving across the mountains, the subtle reflections and shadows that play over water, the absolute stillness of a winter wood.   

Most of my paintings originate on hikes and other times spent alone in nature.  Back in the studio, I rely on my memories, photos, and notes to recapture the emotions a scene inspires.   I revisit a place often to observe its moods at different times of day and in different seasons.  This engagement with a place over time is deeply satisfying to me.   

I’ve been fortunate to study with a number of excellent teachers over the years, including Ken Dixon, Gregg Kreutz, Robert Johnson, Jean Chambers and Paul Murray, but it was Michael Workman’s landscape workshop in the summer of 2007 that inspired me to leave my native Texas for a simplicity that supports and nurtures this painting life. 

Listen – something else hovers out here, not
color, not outlines or depth when air
relieves distance by hazing far mountains,
but some total feeling or other world
almost coming forward, like when a bell sounds
and then leaves a whole countryside waiting.

From “Is This Feeling About the West Real?” by William Stafford