Society
Popeye
Drawn at age four
Trying to fit my life into a bite sized biography is hard with each step of my life being a unique chapter. I have decided to present a web version of my story that speaks more towards what helped create me. In the past the biographies my former dealers or galleries presented seem to want to play up the poverty and suffering in my life which really doesn't represent me.
My life is about overcoming problems rather than allowing them to define me. I’ve always felt challenges should teach us strength and resilience. Maybe there's a misplaced idea that suffering sales art. Art saved me, there is no doubt about that, but it saved me so I could grow and become who I am, not use each canvas to lick past wounds.
I was born in West Germany to young American parents in December 1974. Leaving home at the age of fifteen, my life would centre around the counter-culture in Washington State. I floundered a bit in Washington State, but by the age of 17 I was living in New Mexico, where I opened up my first studio in downtown Gallup, on Coal Ave. At age twenty two I moved to New York City, living in the Lower East Side, and had immediate success as an artist. Working for seventeen years with the legendary art dealer of Modern Masters, Grey Carter, I would reach the top of the Outsider Art genre, and have my work shown in museums. I would returned to New Mexico in my mid thirties to help my hometown's art scene.
My life has been dominated by a major genetic heart issue that wasn't discovered until I suffered a massive heart attack at age twenty nine. I would receive a heart transplant.
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My life is about creativity and production, and less about shows or trying to maintain a professional career. Opting for a peaceful, stress free life away from the limelight in New York City.