Artwork

Walking a Fine Line

Plein air artwork form Torrey Pines State Park at Razor point on the San Diego coast of southern california
My work takes me to remote locations way off the beaten paths, other times it sends me right into the most crowded shoulder to shoulder tourist zones you can find. The further out you go, the less rules there are telling you where you can and cannot go. For the protection of the habitat, for […]…

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Endangered Spaces

Plein air artwork from Torrey Pines State Park looking toward Black's Beach on the san diego coast of California
It had been a long time since I’d explored these trails. I don’t recall them being quite so constricting. I was hoping to find a little nook in the sandstone with a view and some shade. But it was not to be, you can’t step foot off of the clearly marked paths here, without risking […]…

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Succulents, Rust, and Enlightenment

Plein air artwork from the J street lookout over Swami's point in Encinitas on the san diego coast of California

Sometimes it’s cactus Sometimes it’s a rusty barbed wire fenceAnd sometimes it’s just plain old self-realizationStanding in our way


Guns and Flowers

Plein air artwork from Camp Pendleton highway stop on the San Diego coast of southern California
A brief stopping point in the middle of one of California’s Coastal military bases. Access is difficult in these zones so my only option was to pant from a roadside viewpoint- just a quick row of parking spots for travelers to pull off the highway and snap a photo or two of the sunset, or […]…

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The Way it Was

Plein air artwork of El Moro headland at Crystal Cove State Park on the orange county coast of southern California
I was asked to paint this iconic Southern California cove the way it was before the highway and houses came along, without any signs of human presence. It would require some careful editing of the devoloped landscape. Speaking of careful handling of the landscape, it would also require some careful stepping through a plant rehabilitation […]…

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Drip Castles

I was scheduled to do some live art today at a local event here in Humboldt, a culinary event celebrating… well, Spam, of all things… but also with some live music so I figured I’d zone out, angle for some free beers (which were kindly provided) and figure something out as I went. Shortly before […]…

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Poppies and Pointbreaks

A tribute painting to the California poppies and coast painted on a surfboard
He’d laugh this little howling cackle that pulled you into his slipstream as you made your way along the path, down the makeshift rope, repelling into the cove below that you’d never seen breaking before and now was suddenly cracking it’s sonic water booms on the reef below. Everything made him laugh. And almost everything […]…

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Not California

It’s pretty hard to get me to paint anything but the California coast. I have a list of commission requests that I try to get to in the studio each year, but often they get pushed back, sometimes a few years if they aren’t requesting a California location. Not sure how this commission snuck onto […]


Over the Waters

Painted live, (start to finish and without a plan) at the Arcata Theater Lounge a few months ago. I began this one in black and white, accompanied by a piano soloist, with black and white surf films playing on the screen behind the stage. Never felt so classy in my whole life.


Over the Moon

A slice of California, a view from an elevated state… It’s not always outdoors and in the wind, this one was done late last year in the studio, but a painting like this doesn’t happen without spending some serious hours, days, and years of, well… “researching the topic.”


Mushroom Hunting

Plein air artwork of Trinidad State Beach on the Humboldt coast of Northern California
They sit motionless, watching passively Not engaged in the passage of time like you or IYet not outside of it eitherWe travel the worldSearching for new experiencesNew understandings of what it isTo be alive.They watch us come and goAlways returning to their steady gazeChangedYet somehow always the sameThey have no need for comings and goingsYet […]…

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Pretty Much Flapjacks

Plein air artwork of the Samoa Dunes on the Humboldt Coast of Northern California
These dunes are a lot of different things for a lot of different people. If you wander around them enough, much like coastal dunes near urban areas everywhere, you’ll find the clues left behind- everything from remains of small fires where school kids burned their homework, to all sorts of sordid tales of detritus that […]…

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