I’ve always been pretty private—sharing finished work, occasional process shots, but rarely any insight behind how any of this came to be….

Reflecting on the last 10 years has reminded me of something very simple:

None of this happened all at once.

A lot of it wasn’t planned. A lot of it was improvised. And a lot of it came from following instincts I still don’t understand. It was a slow accumulation of choices—some confident, some clumsy.

This isn’t a highlight reel or a how-to—just reflections on life choices and the way art was always intertwined.

I didn’t live the cliche artist story of dramatic pain and struggle. I don’t express myself with highbrow emotional and metaphoric paintings. I never starved. I’ve always created from a place of joy and imagination. Making art has always felt good to me. After that, it’s like any other job, you have to do the work. Show up. Build a business.

If you’ve ever wondered where the artwork comes from—or why it feels the way it does—this is me pulling back the curtain.

Early Days

In our house growing up, creativity was a default setting. We were always playing games, inventing characters, telling stories, entertaining and making one another laugh. We were world building before I knew that was a thing. Crayons, markers, paper, and glue, were there for the taking and drawing and creating ‘things’ came naturally. This creative freedom laid the foundation for everything else.

In grade school, without thought, I embraced an early ability to draw. All the classic things a child might make – people, animals, houses – I loved football and basketball and would draw players, helmets, shoes, logos. I was always drawing or doodling something. A teacher once sent a letter home to my parents concerned about how my drawing was interfering with my ‘school work’.

HIGH SCHOOL

In high school, art continued to be a part of my identity. I got decent enough grades, but art classes were where I excelled. By junior year I had taken nearly all of the art classes that were offered, so my teacher allowed me the freedom to work on whatever I wanted, so long as I was working on something. She also taught me a valuable lesson that didn’t take right away but planted a seed… A lot of my work at the time was incomplete – sketches, figures or scenes floating in space. She encouraged me to finish a piece of art, make it a composition.

YOUNG ADULT

By the end of high school, I had been accepted to the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. But along with being incredibly expensive, the thought of more school sounded agonizing. I craved freedom and independence. I chose not to go to MIAD and instead got a job. I was a delivery driver for an electrical parts wholesaler. I moved out of my parents house and created my own life. I had my freedom. My independence. The art I made during this time continued to be casual; funny pictures for friends, co-workers in obscene situations, cartoons that exploited a running joke. My skills stayed sharp enough. I became comfortable. And though I didn’t know it at the time, this comfort would become a liability and there was a void that needed to be filled….

MUSIC FILLED THE VOID FOR A LONG TIME

Around the age of 20 making music began occupying most of my free time. My brother and I and some friends started hanging out and creating songs. Crude, basic, naive. We found it easier to make up our own tunes rather than learn existing ones. This new hobby grew and evolved over the next ten years. I wrote lots of music, collaboratively and independently. Quality improved. My entire circle of friends became centered around music. Hangouts progressed into an established band, rehearsing and performing regularly. While moonlighting as a pseudo rock star, to pay for life I was of course still grinding in “regular” jobs, saving only scraps of time for visual art. I made every band poster, websites, graphic design, the obscene cartoons continued. I was scratching my creative itches, but after some time, it became apparent I was on the wrong creative road…

YEARS THAT SPUN WITHOUT MOVING

That era of my life was full — friends, independence, money, experiences. Comfortable — but circular. Forty-plus hours a week halfheartedly showing up, just to afford rent and weekends with the boys. Nothing was wrong enough to force change, and that was the problem.

One day though, I took real stock of how I was spending the majority of my time, and it scared me. This was it. This was the loop. Work, drink, repeat. All my energy going into sustaining the machine, leaving scraps for anything fulfilling.

Eventually, the band was only creating hangovers, and the more musical types I was around, the more I realized this was not my true artistic superpower. I was good enough, but I was not undeniable. Combine that with a breakup that called out my dead end jobs and lack of prospects, and I was faced with the reckoning that I had spent a lot of time merely spinning my wheels. I knew it now – something had to change.

I started drawing again.

Everyday. Not as a career move, but simply because I knew in my heart that’s what I should be doing. It was like getting back in touch with an old friend. We picked right up where we had last left off. Little by little, I began looking for any art making opportunity I could find. The band was now on life support, and gigs were rare, so I started painting murals on the rehearsal room walls. This helped me land a paid mural job at local restaurant which opened a door that I needed to walk through…

MY OWN ART RENAISSANCE

A handful of mural jobs had me painting a lot, and led me to an ad on craigslist, “Hiring Acrylic Painters”. It sounded too good to be true. It was a new Paint and Sip studio in town looking for instructors. I was near a panic attack going to the first meeting though – I was not a teacher. I had no training, no credentials. I somehow pulled it together and once we started painting I quickly realized that I belonged. The tension melted away. In time, I made great bonds with the other instructors. The Paint and Sip was thriving.

Teaching ushered me into my own personal art renaissance. I was painting constantly and conducting classes forced me to articulate my instincts. Why this color. Why that brushstroke. Why slow. Why fast. It exposed my own strengths and weaknesses as a painter and forced me to articulate them to others. It helped me to improve everything. I was painting things I would have never chosen, and learning something new every step of the way.

I met my future wife, McKenna at that paint and sip and together with other friends, we rode a wave of creative energy. We had painting hangouts, and were all sharing ideas and opportunities. I started making paintings intentionally to sell at the Paint and Sip and local “Gallery Walk” events. I made a lot of landscapes and classic motifs. At the same time there was a lot of experimentation. I was guided again by instinct and chose to paint things that fell into my own areas of general interest. Encouraged by people wanting to own my work, I was getting some traction now. So much traction that I was finally able to shed my “real” job. I was now supporting myself entirely with teaching and selling paintings.

LEAVENWORTH, WA

In 2016, McKenna and I found ourselves unencumbered with any real obligations and together felt an urge to try something all together different. We accepted a camp hosting job in Leavenworth, WA as an exciting summer excursion. When poking around for art opportunities in the area, we blundered upon Village Art in the Park, a seasonal – weekly Art Fair in Leavenworth. We applied immediately and what began as one summer “just for fun” turned into seven years of full-time travel and art making.

OVERLOOKING OUR SEASONAL SITE IN LEAVENWORTH

We converted a travel trailer into a mobile art studio and built our businesses one weekend at a time interacting directly with customers and collectors. Living in a small space and showing every week eliminated distractions and demanded a laser focus… Sell a piece, replace it. Learn what’s resonating. Learn presentation. Learn how to talk about your art. Try to out-do yourself. Rinse and repeat. It was essentially an art-fair college. 15 or so other full time artists all summer long, sharing hard won knowledge. Our businesses and abilities became fit and sustainable.

Throughout this time my work was influenced by the landscapes I roamed. Big trees, big forests, oceans and mountains – maritime and coastal culture. These flavors blended with my own interests of legend and lore, exploration and discovery, mystery and the unexplained. Each successful painting in some way launching into the next. A snowball effect. Ideas arrived, giving birth to more. As we moved around and explored, my artwork did the same. It was a truly inspiring time of creation, growth and prosperity.

Living small and our businesses flourishing, we were able to stack up a savings. While it was difficult saying goodbye to the PNW, we eventually decided it was time to go back to our people in Wisconsin, and in 2023 built a modest new home for ourselves on a piece of rural property where we continue working from today. Chickens, outdoor cats, and big damn room for making art…

NONE OF THIS HAPPENED ALL AT ONCE

While I drifted with the wind for many years, I remain grateful that my gifts waited patiently for me to return. Getting back on the right creative path wasn’t a single moment or a single decision.

It was a slow accumulation of choices mixed with luck, momentum, and an ever present urge to do something creative with my time. The “art business” part was never an executed plan, but instead something that sprouted from seeds falling out of my pockets along the way.

When you’re little they tell you to take something you love, find a way to get paid for it, and you’ll never work another day in your life. Well, they were right.

REMAINING CURIOUS

Painting continuously during the last 10 years has reunited me with my true superpower, and taught me how to care for it intentionally, no longer taking it for granted. It’s planted me back inside the world of imagination that filled the days of my youth. Where daydreaming is encouraged. Where looking at the world with wonder and curiosity is essential.

Closed systems – authority, religions, “settled science,” official stories, have always bothered me. Impositions of finality feel deeply uninspiring to me. I prefer space. Ambiguity. Improvisation. I’m interested in the edges of known reality, the places where history, myth, and imagination overlap. I want to believe. I stay open. Ghosts, other dimensions, ancient knowledge — I don’t crave certainty. I want curiosity.

My artwork has always embraced that curiosity — grounded worlds where something strange might still be possible. I’m not interested in fantasy for fantasy’s sake. If my work does anything at all, I hope it gives you permission to wander again — to return to that childhood place where imagination wasn’t an escape, but a way of understanding the world. A place to get lost. A place where the story never ends, it just waits for you to step back inside.