Aside from the process of creating a painting, the greatest satisfaction I  get comes from the feeling that I have produced something that people appreciate. Watching a happy buyer leave my studio with a piece of art, be it a small watercolour sketch created on a mountaintop afternoon or a large oil portrait that took weeks to accomplish, gives me that feeling. As much as I love it when people like my art, I’m not at all saddened if they don’t. Art, just as beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Drawing and painting have been a part of my life as long as I can remember. My first formal instruction began when I was 12 years old and was enrolled in Ms. Ritchie’s drawing and painting class.  Ms. Ritchie had studied under Arthur Lismer  and J. E. H. McDonald of the ‘Group of Seven’ and she strongly believed that wherever art takes one, one must have the basic skills of perspective, proportion and drawing  to succeed. The strong classical base Ms. Ritchie gave me proved to be of great value in my first year at the Ecole Des Beaux Arts in Montreal in 1958.

My formal training led to a successful career in commercial art and advertising. Later, circumstances had me experience many other business ventures, from imports to building design and construction supplies. In 30 years of meeting the challenges of business, I felt success  as well as  disappointment, but my strong desire to paint stayed constant throughout. In 1984 I decided to paint full time, a bold move that brought with it new challenges. The satisfaction and happiness I have experienced since making that decision  more than compensate for the ups and downs of making a living with art.