SnapShot Series
This series of small oil paintings—each just 6x6 inches—draws inspiration from old snapshots and Polaroids of my childhood. These photographs, often blurry, unposed, and imperfect, capture the fleeting nature of memory in a way that today’s carefully selected digital images do not. Some of the paintings are in black and white, while others reflect the early Kodachrome palette of cyan, magenta, and yellow. I’ve limited my palette to these colors, along with titanium white, transparent oxide brown, and yellow ochre, to capture the look, feeling, of these old photographs. In some pieces, I’ve also tried to capture the glare and surface irregularities of glossy prints. As I am painting these, I’m not just revisiting my own past, but tapping into something universal—the way we all connect to the nostalgia of captured time. Viewers have told me these paintings stir something deeply personal, evoking emotions and memories of their own
Panning For Gold
Age 8 or so. Me and my dad in Colorado ‘panning for gold’ at one of those tourist Gold Rush things. My mom snapped this photo. I had a small gold nugget that my dad bought me in the gift shop that I had forever.
Babushka
3rd grade, so about 1966? Me standing in front of my house about to walk to school. My mom took the photo probably because she had just made me that new triangular scarf that we all wore then. I took it off halfway to school of course. Then one day, somehow a bird pooped on my head and I had to confess to my mom that I was not wearing the scarf which she then proclaimed that the SOLE PURPOSE of that scarf was to protect my hair from bird droppings. I look like a little babushka.
At the River
This one is not of me but of my mom and my dad and uncle just hanging out at the bank of the Vermillion River in Danville Illinois before they had any kids. So about 1937? My dad and uncle had been swimming. My mom is sitting in a chair dressed in denim overalls, a plaid shirt, and little hiking boots. She was not raised on a farm and wasn’t a hiker, so I don’t know why she was dressed that way. I once asked her about it, but she couldn’t remember. Really didn’t even remember the day. It’s one of those moments preserved in a photo, yet the memory fades over time—making it all the more precious. And I just love those little boots.
Me, Just Sitting There
We all have those photographs of us. Where we’re just sitting there in a room doing seemingly nothing. Somebody took a snapshot. Why? No idea.  I’m sure it was my mother that took the picture. Maybe she saw the light coming in from the shears hanging in that window, the sunlight shining in. Or maybe she had just sewn that outfit I’m wearing and she was trying to get a picture of it which is probably the most likely explanation. What is weird is that I can remember that day when I was just sitting there…. I remember the fabric of the sofa and the crisp cotton of the top and the “peddle pushers” she had made me. The sofa was actually part of a sectional that my mother had separated . I have no recollection of the vase and flowers though.
First of Many Hoops
Age 3. First time trying to master the hula hoop but all I could manage was just stepping through it. Little did I know how many hoops I would jump through in my life.
60's Kitchen
Me about age 2, sitting in a high chair in a typical 1960s kitchen. Complete with the wall phone and a Nesco which was a fixture in my parents' home forever. Dozens of thanksgiving turkeys were cooked in that. I now have the Nesco, though not the cabinet They kept booze in that cabinet, which was funny because they barely drank. The same bottles of vermouth, bitters, and whiskey were in it for years for the twice a year weekend with friends where they played poker and drank Manhattans. I also inherited the highchair which I used for my own kids but no idea where it ended up.