The son of a U.S. Forest Service hydrologist, and homemaker, I was born in Mt. Pleasant, Utah and grew up in a variety of small communities in the west, the most memorable being the small logging town of McCall (Idaho). My fondest childhood memories center on the days I spent huckleberry picking in the mountains. I attended Utah State University, graduating in 1987 with a BFA in Drawing. That same year, I also received the University’s Robins Award for Achievement of the Year, and an anonymous gift of $500 to further my education in art. To this end, I attended graduate school at the University of Iowa, and earned both a MA (1989) and a MFA (1990) in Drawing/Painting. In 1991, I married Alexandra Carpino, an art historian who specializes in the field of Etruscan art. Our son, Adrian, was born in 1996 and our daughter, Chiara Rose, in 1999. Currently, I teach courses in Drawing, Figure Drawing and Installation art in the School of Art at Northern Arizona University.

Since 1993, I have maintained an active exhibition schedule, showing drawings, sculptures, and numerous large scale, site-specific, place-based installations at venues throughout the U.S., many which were part of one-person shows. In 1998, I had a retrospective of my work at Wayne State University; the show included drawings from graduate school, recent sculptures, and three large-scale installations, including A Toll on Earth, which was reviewed in the 1999 Jan./Feb. issue of Sculpture.

I have been recognized by arts organizations in Alaska, Arizona, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio. My awards include a 1996 Creative Artists Grant from the Michigan Council for the Arts for A Path that Joins, and Divides; the 1999 William & Dorothy Yeck Award for Temple of the Sibyl; and a 2003 Artist Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts for Virga (The Hunt for Water). And in 2004, I became the first Flagstaff artist to receive a grant from the Phoenix Art Museum’s Contemporary Forum.

*banner photo courtesy of Professor Clinton Shock, Oregon State University.