The most important thing I know is how little I know. It took me 40 years to become mature enough to realize this fact. It is a very exciting fact because it opens the world to me and allows me to stop trying to prove how much I know. Having entered the job market without a Bachelors degree, I had to spend more time proving what I knew than I did learning new skills. Fortunately, I was successful for 17 years as a display artist culminating with four years with the Walt Disney Company.

Dramatic life changes occurred in 2001 that forced me to decide what the second half of my life was going to be. Having always regretted stopping my education, I decided to enroll as a junior at Florida Gulf Coast University to resume my study of art. Having received an Associate's degree from Valencia Community College in 1983, I was a much more matured version of myself as picked up where I left off with my academic career.

My skills as a painter have been sharpened by life experience. Love and loss, success and failure, guilt and joy are all experiences rather than concepts to me. These experiences make my work more meaningful as I try to symbolize the human condition in my work. At this point I believe that an artist is a communicator instead of a historian. I do not intend to pursue work as a documentor of how things were, nor how a person looked during a sitting, or even what a landscape looks like. Rather, I must create art that reflects the feelings and emotions of our times. Montage rather than image and color as emotive force, are two of my consistencies.

What do I want to be when I grow up? I hope I never find out. I was born an artist and I am going to see where that leads me during the second half of my life. For this adventure, I want to arm myself with new knowledge, skills, ideas and opportunities.