Artist Introduction

While producing artwork at a very rapid pace has its advantages, I knew there was a dimension and complexity to my illustrations that was missing simply because of the time limitations of commercial art. During this period, I also painted several portraits and became familiar with the oil medium. Based upon this experience, I realized that I could create images that were far superior to my illustrative work by taking advantage of the luminous qualities of oils. I also realized that this new technique wasn't practical for short deadlines. Each of my paintings takes months to complete due to the multiple glazes I use to create depth and bring the painting to life. These glazes also allow me to manipulate the color and texture to an infinite degree. My paintings are full of patterns and subtle variations of color and light.

As Americans, we all live on land that once supported a culture and spiritual belief system untouched by modern man. I became aware of this at a very early age and it has certainly altered the way I view reality. I consider each one of my paintings an honorable expression of a time that is lost forever and never to be again. I like to capture an emotion that is timeless, to evoke a sense of the reality and beauty of the Native American culture. The subjects you see in my paintings are real Native Americans. The pictures I paint are a combination of images I've photographed at powwows, of friends, while traveling or reference from my files. My approach to Native American art is to create a beautiful and powerful classic image, as viable today as 100 years in the future.

I've been happily married for 22 years to my beautiful wife, Karen. We met at Auburn University and married just after graduation in 1980. We worked together in advertising/marketing for about 12 years. Karen managed the studio that employed the illustration talent, including myself, as commercial artists. Leaving the Atlanta concrete jungle and hectic pace of advertising behind, we moved to the lush green landscape of a small rural Georgia community called Roscoe, outside Atlanta. Here, we reside on 14 acres with 2 horses, 5 dogs, 3 cats and 1 peacock. Karen now makes wonderful wooden block puzzles and can be seen at art festivals all over the southeast. Her website is www.kjpuzzles.com . She also is very involved in Parelli Natural Horse-Man-Ship and is the East Coast Event Coordinator for PNH. She combines her love of horses and art to make playful clay sculptures, which she calls "Spirit Ponies".

My other interest also include playing piano, writing music, astronomy, aviation, and an intense interest in all branches of the sciences. I'm also the inventor of a patented saucer aircraft design. My aircraft design was first published in Popular Science and I was later visited by engineers from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, located in Washington D.C. It was their opinion that my invention represented not only the first genuinly new aircraft design in the last 40 years of aviation history, but I had created the worlds first stable saucer aircraft. I'm now president of my own aircraft company called Geobat Flying Saucer Aviation Inc. Go to www.geobat.com to see the invention. As strange as this may sound, flying saucers are coming and I'm the artist/inventor who is going to make it happen!