Life as an artist started at a very young age for me. Back in the 1970s, I always looked forward to every new edition of the newspaper we received each week and drew my favorite cartoons. As time went by, life started to take me in a different direction, bringing more into focus competitive figure skating. I trained and competed across the country and in Canada for many years, followed by a professional coaching career in ice dance and freestyle figure skating. During this time, I trained and worked alongside world-renowned coaches and competitors, all while traveling the country to many key locations for the sport. 

          While coaching competitive figure skating, I began to explore my passion for the arts again. This time, I began expressing my artistic talent through woodworking and was able to apprentice for five years under the company and friend of Charles Phillips Fine Furniture & Cabinetry. This eventually led me to begin my own company, Turtlewood Palettes, producing hand-held wooden artist palettes for professional oil painting artists. 

          Through Turtlewood Palettes, I have met and gotten to know many professional oil painting artists over the years who have helped me develop and refine my oil painting skills. With the support of my artist friends, I have had the opportunity to attend several workshops from leading artists while learning their techniques and practices while studying portraiture, still life, and landscape painting. Some of the professional artists that I have studied under, from, or with on their approach and techniques to oil painting are Michael Shane Neal, Dawn E. Whitelaw, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Jason Saunders, Michael Del Priore, Burton Silverman and Daniel Greene to name just a few. 

          In my time with the Portrait Society of America, I was a Gold Sponsor for several years through Turtlewood Palettes, donating our palettes to the top 10 finalists for the International Portrait Conference along with contributing to and supporting the Portrait Society of America. As a member of the Portrait Society, I have had the opportunity to attend and take advantage of numerous workshops and demonstrations, dealing with portrait painting, landscape painting, and working on commissioned projects. I am still an active member of the Portrait Society of America and our local Chestnut Group for landscape painting artists and attend online instructional workshops and open studio workshops with the surrounding artists. I hope you enjoy looking through my site, and I look forward to working with you and helping you find what interests you.