Biography

My artwork explores the basic elements of drawing.

I grew up in Buffalo NY. Before I’d learned to walk, I was trying to draw. Drawing became the way I made sense of the world. It also became the way I internalized abstract ideas like excellence, affectation, discipline, ambition, mediocrity and hypocrisy.

Now drawing has become my window for seeing how someone else thinks. Is it a surprise that I’ve become a committed draughtsman?

When I was awarded the Mayer Family Foundation’s Artist-in-Residence grant more than 25 years ago, I found myself in bucolic, upstate Sharon Springs NY, completely enchanted. However, I’d forgotten my extensive reference materials in New York City. Ideas I’d accumulated for years in sketchbooks had to be eased out slowly through the discipline of drawing rather than “the breezy approximations of sketching”.

Jack, Wed Aug 29, 2007, 11:08:32 AM, 8C, 6000×8000, (0+0), 100%, Repro 1.8 v2, 1/60 s, R45.9, G13.6, B0.0

THE INVOICE FOR THE BILL OF RIGHTS

Hand-printed lithograph with
additional hand-drawn details.
Edition of 185

HERRINGBONED

Drawing: Ink on rag stock

Entire passages from IN THE NEXT LIFE, I’LL GET IT RIGHT slowly emerged, but with such clarity and much more force than I’d ever experienced before. I’d succeeded in haunting myself: a more personal vision had emerged. Also, I stopped pushing my work toward rapid completion. Essenially I’ve become my own tuning fork, with the time to divine what works and what does not, to form a template as I proceed with just an intuitive sense of what should be. 6 months has become a break-neck pace, since most. Grids now evolve over 2-5 years.

Why do I make my work archival although it isn’t fashionable?I believe strongly that the Arts matter, and that their power to be perceived and to influence grows as we mature. A work resonates even more against our life experiences- especially our unexpected ones. This commitment is expressed by my using both paper and drawing materials which are chemically tested to be archival. With proper care my originals will last for generations, and even my giclees should last at least 60 years.

After classical training at Albright-Knox Art Museum, Carnegie Mellon and Hartford Art School, I graduated from the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). Once in New York City, my range of visual applications expanded: textiles design & garment construction at FIT, television production design at Parsons School of Design (on an ABC-TV scholarship), handbuilding & bas relief at Greenwich House Pottery, plus various seminars at the 92nd St Y. Anatomy studies continue at the Art Students’ League, where I’ve been a Member since 1997. Other affiliations include: NY Artists Equity, Portrait Society of America, Colored Pencil Society of America, the CUE Foundation, MetroOrange Art & The Buffalo Society of Artists.

Given my love of art history, technique, color relationships and, of course, drawing, these artists continue to influence my work: the fierce whimsy of Paul Klee, Rudy Zallinger’s exactitude, THE #1 living American colorist Connie Hayes, Hananiah Harari’s gift for loving wonder, Rico Lebrun’s integrity, Benoit Mandelbrot’s fractal geometry, the ever-spiritual and patient Harvey Breverman, the intensely elegant American basketeer Nancy Moore Bess and the fearless Aussie-American art critic, writer & historian, Robert Hughes. Although I rarely exhibit, my work is found in private, university & corporate collections throughout the US, Canada, England, Israel & Spain. Currently, my home and studio are both in lower Manhattan.