ARTIST STATEMENT
I spent the first half of my life in Utah constructing robots and lighthouses from a box of junk I received one early childhood Christmas. At age seven I was sent to school in Mexico, where I was taught manners by an aunt whose Belgian and Spanish parents had confirmed her misfit in Mexican society. Living aboard a sailboat the following year, I traveled the Atlantic coast of the United States in the company of family, Madonna’s Immaculate Collection, and Dvorak’s New World Symphony.
Having been raised the product of a Mexican mother and an Irishman in a home defined by familiar sounds, tastes, and smells rather than location, my non-traditional upbringing has long made me question those influences, innate and environmental, that compose the individual. Unable to isolate a single self-defining event or circumstance, I have come to view people each as a sum of all events that have shaped his character.
One’s fortune may be consequent of an innate nature, the decisions he makes, or determined by his social environment. Whether one chooses to conceal his past or put in on display, he wears his experiences, recorded in each wrinkle, every scar. In my paintings I explore the individual experiences that have shaped my subjects. Just as people wear their experiences on the surface, buildings display their histories by way of chipping paint, cracks, and stains. To me the greater the accumulation of experiences, the greater the subject’s character and the more human it becomes. On occasion, I have encountered buildings that draw more breath, that have a more audible pulse, than individual people I have met. It is upon focusing on my subject’s idiosyncrasies and imperfections, as in the people I know, that it comes to life.
STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
We are all artists in childhood, struggling to understand the world around us through simple drawings. As we age, most us forget that early journey of artistic discovery. Those of us who continue to draw keep alive our journey of discovery and introspection; we call ourselves artists. It is my belief that the fundamental value in the continued creation of art lies not in its creation per se, nor in its reception by the public, and not in any monetary reward, but in the reward it provides the artist in furthering his journey of discovery and understanding.
My philosophy of art education is focused on intense, personalized teaching with three primary goals: 1) fusing creative thinking with technical and communication skills in order to express a personal vision, 2) understanding how to make artistic pursuit a way of life, and 3) learning to continually critique one's art work as part of the discovery process.
To achieve these goals an artist-teacher must recognize each student's unique nature and talent, while simultaneously encouraging experimentation and risk-taking in a supportive environment. Under my instruction, students will be expected to define their concepts and objectives clearly, make visual and verbal presentations of their work, meet assignment deadlines on time, and integrate self-criticism and criticism from class discussion into their work, all in an attempt to assist each artist's personal journey.
