California Paintings

This group of paintings comes from the years I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, from June 24, 1984 until June 24, 1994. Yeah I know, ten years to the day, kinda weird but cool I think. It was a wonderful ten years to be young and learning. I had the good fortune to have studied at several Bay Area schools including: the DeYoung School in Golden Gate Park, California College of Arts and Crafts. San Francisco State with Maria Thibeault, and Paul Prechenko, and finally in the graduate program at UC Berkeley with Chris and Joan Brown, Mary Oneil, Sylvia Lark, Richard Shaw, and Oliver Jackson. The group of painters known as the Bay Area Figuratives; David Park, Elmer Bishoff, Richard Debienkorn were a big influence on me at that time and remain so. 

I only applied to one graduate painting program and was accepted on the strength of my Cow paintings, forty something paintings that had something to do with bovines in subject but that gave me the opportunity I had looked for to explore the expressive possibilities of oil paint. In fact I was refered to as the Cow Guy for a while until I switched my subject matter to cityscapes and koi ponds.