Artist Statement

Your pet’s portrait and my style have been years in the making.

Your pet’s portrait and my style have been years in the making. 

I have been preparing for this opportunity from the time I discovered John Singer Sargent’s and Charles Reid’s watercolors in my high school library one snowy winter day in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

Pure “realism” flattens my emotional experience. The internet is filled with emotionally flat images of pets. 

I like, as a teacher once said, about a painting on which I was working, to “juice it up a little.” By that meant, “risk” the safety of excruciating detail and jump, leap or run into the safety of exploration and nuance. Mistakes happen; use them to your advantage.

Technology has freed me up from the physical and chemical challenges inherent with traditional painting tools and has opened up me techniques and applications unknown in Sargent’s or most of Reid’s life time.

Thank you for trusting me with expressing and portraying the beauty, charm, spirit and love of your pet. I am honored.