I am a maker, a self- trained naturalist, beekeeper, dreamer of insect and botanical life – and also a father and teacher. My practice is driven by what I call Aesthetic Fieldwork – which is closer to acts of day dreaming than any kind of scientific inquiry. It’s the beauty and the multi-sensory phenomena that I react to in the natural world  – such as an ephemeral vernal pool, or pollen lightly riding on its anther. These visual and physical sensations are distilled and transformed as my work – which is my response to being in the world; a participant, yet also an outsider.

I am also a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art, teaching primarily in the Foundation program, sharing my sense of wonder with students through site explorations in the Cleveland Metroparks, and teaching design through nature. I recently developed and taught several Environmental Art electives through CIA’s Engaged Practice program, where I team-taught with Cleveland Metropark Naturalists and other content experts on site. I also worked with students to design and make site-specific seating along the Lake Erie Birding Trail at Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve. A beehive was made and installed on the roof of my school’s building, which was meant to be shared with any program for study.

Trained initially in painting and printmaking at Kent State University, it was through taking a course my final semester with ceramist John Gill, that I transitioned from primarily an image maker to a maker of objects. I later received an MFA in ceramics at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.

I was a carpenter and tile setter, working for a historical preservation contractor in Philadelphia, restoring structures on Boathouse Row, and several 18th and 19th century domestic structures in the region. At this time, I began to design and make architectural tiles for a design build firm in Philadelphia, and to produce interior tiles for other clients. My work now has no allegiance to any one medium, and leans towards wood working, sewing, and drawing.

I have exhibited regionally and nationally, such as The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Philadelphia Art Museum, Delaware Art Museum, Allentown Museum of Art among others. I am a recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, as well as a Creative Workforce Fellowship in 2016.

The works in this website are in no strict chronological order – early works and ideas drift back and forth in time, none of which have been played out fully. Life is too short and I’m often lost in reverie.