About the Artist

I was born In Lordsburg, New Mexico, on the 6th of April, 1946. I graduated from Alamogordo High in 1965, worked as a lumberjack and completed a tour of duty in Vietnam for the Army in 1968. Then I became a carpenter and went to Denver, Colorado where I met and married Louisiana native, Ramona J. Thompson in 1972.

We moved to Ruston, Louisiana where I attended art school. I recieved my BFA at the same time our first son, Damian was born in 1976. After that our little family moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where I continued graduate work in painting, lithography and bronze casting. Ramona studied stained glass and weaving while taking care of our baby. When I completed my MFA we moved to Austin, Texas where our youngest son, Amigo was born.

Soon after that we bought land in the mountains between the art centers of Santa Fe and Taos, NM, where we built a handmade adobe, round house, raised children, goats, chickens and donkeys and made art. When our boys were grown, we moved back to Ruston, LA, where Ramona works in a Montessori School and I work in the Architecture and Interior Design Department at Louisiana Tech University.

As a native of the American Southwest, I have always been deeply moved by the majesty and grandeur of the stark desert landscape bordered by the distant blue and violet mountain ranges and billowing white and cream cloud masses which color so dramatically at dawn and sunset. From early youth, I have been encouraged to look for and appreciate naturally occurring designs and patterns in clouds, rock formations and woodgrains which have developed within me an accute aesethetic sense, so neccessary in all artistic endeavors.

Painting has always been a way of expressing some of the facets of my mind, my thoughts, ideas, emotions. It’s a passion, the way I view and celebrate life. In this fine art gallery, I’ve assembled some of my favorite original oil paintings.

Having studied art in Mexico, I am greatly influenced by the “magical realism” of Mexican and pre-Columbian Art. While figures and landscapes abound, they are embued with an other-worldy aura suggesting the spiritual dimensions.