• BIOGRAPHY

    I have drawn my entire life. Over the years my relationship with drawing has gone through various phases that have shaped my practice into what it is today. My career was launched in 1990 when I accepted a position at General Motors (GM) as an automotive designer. Although I was successful at GM my career and life trajectory drastically changed in 1997 while scuba diving when I experienced coral bleaching up close. I was awakened to the destructive nature of industry and soon decided to leave the corporate realm to create a journey that would align my vocation with my values.

    This transition led to my joining the University of Cincinnati in 2000 where I continue to pursue this path of intellectual inquiry as an Associate Professor. From this position I share my experiences through publications, presentations, workshops, and teachings as a writer, lecturer, and visual artist.

    In 2004, I co-founded Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, a non-profit arts organization located in Cincinnati Ohio. Manifest is dedicated to creating, exploring, presenting, and documenting exceptional visual art from around the world. I continue to serve on Manifest's Board of Directors and am involved in exhibitions, publications, and overall activities. Additionally, for the past 5-years I have taught ‘Drawing as Mindfulness’ at Manifest Drawing Center on a weekly basis. This course is unique as it is largely centered on the experience of drawing as a mindfulness practice.

    Over the past few years, I have honed my creative work to exclusively focus on the ‘experience’ of drawing. Currently, I am enthusiastically maintaining a drawing practice with the clear intention to disseminate my work through further publications and exhibitions. I am also continuing a writing practice where I am presently working on two book proposals, both of which are related to the experience of drawing but from very different perspectives.

    I have a broad interest in drawing because of my passion for life drawing, drawing from observation, plein air, and conceptual drawing. Also, this is largely what I teach as an academic. However, as a visual artist my drawings are abstract. Because of my love for the natural environment my process is inspired by nature in ways that range from a microscopic viewpoint to topographical landscapes. My drawings are, in a sense, collaborations with nature as I am continuously inspired by the visual beauty in this world.