Influences

South Lexington, Kentucky and its environs proved to be fertile ground for sparking a lifelong interest in art and the natural world.  Raised in a busy household with plenty of siblings and family pets, creative energy abounded.  Freedom to roam the neighboring fields and woodlots provided hands-on opportunity for observing plants and wildlife.  Talented parents who encouraged curiosity and tolerated messiness enabled trial and error learning.

And then there were the books and magazines, lots of them.  Stories and poems illustrated by the likes of Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Kate Greenaway, Edmund Dulac, Jesse Wilcox Smith, Arthur Rackham, Norman Rockwell, then later Frank Frazetta, Burne Hogarth, Harvey Kurtzman, Edward Gorey and Maurice Sendak.

Life in the Netherlands as a teenager was incredible.  The museums, the architecture, the cuisine, the culture, the very ancientness  of everything was mesmerizing. Those childhood  trips to London, Vienna, Mallorca, Florence and Paris whet an appetite for later travels in Europe and North Africa.

The work world beckoned, then 10 years later a yen for something more surfaced.  After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a minor in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Kentucky, a whole new career unfolded in the field of Graphic Design. 

---