the life of a narrative artist . . .

There is hardly a place here on earth where people haven't been; yet the world continues to be rediscovered. My illustrations tell stories from my explorations of the vast boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Like an explorer, I look for legends and remnants left by people and creatures before me. I listen for whispered secrets from the rocks, wind, and water - recording in my sketchbooks and journals, and with my camera. I then weave these messages into visual metaphors. My life takes a paradoxical swing from sailing with the winds, living miserly on solar energy and drawing by kerosene light to composing these experiences into digital compositions using computer technology. We live during an extraordinary time where we can mix traditional and contemporary mediums together, giving us greater freedom of expression and pursuits of lifestyles that we never before imagined.

 

a word about my life . . .

I have combined my traditional art with digital compositions about my odysseys while exploring the vast boreal regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Over the many years, I have canoed and documented the northern Ontario wilderness and sailed Lakes Michigan and Huron and the coast of Maine. This all began from a lifelong dream of cruising and living on a sailboat, when I constructed, with the help of many friends, a traditional wooden sailboat called 'Alwihta' in 1976 - 1981. Finally in 2000, I departed from a thirty-year career as a technical illustrator and animator at Western Michigan University to combine traveling and documentation full-time. During the last four years, I have explored the Northwest Passage from Washington to Alaska in my son's sailboat, the Highlands of Scotland and the Hebrides, the Maritime Provinces in Canada and have circumnavigated Lake Superior in 2001 and 2003 joined by a rotating crew of artists. The two Superior trips resulted in the traveling exhibition and multimedia presentations called 'Reflections of Superior' that toured the Great Lakes area for the last three years. Now, thanks to the Emerging Artist's Grant from the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation I have created another exhibition of new work called 'Maritime Odysseys and Woodland Encounters' along with a multimedia presentation.