I am an abstract expressionist artist, who emphasizes bold colors and metallics with dynamic, shifting textures. I make each of my “canvases” personally by hand, choosing each painting’s unique physical dimensions before I even begin to paint. I use acrylics on vinyl layered on board which gives me very robust command of color and texture.

My personal trajectory into the art world was quite atypical. I never had any formal training in art, but in my college years I discovered a natural sense for graphic design. This led me to a decade-long mini-career as a Creative Director for the boutique advertising and creative services firm IMAGERY.

Then I made a dramatic life-shift, going to law school and graduating Cum Laude with several academic honors. After passing the Bar Exam, I became a Deputy District Attorney in Orange County, CA. Of course criminal law is very intense. Every decision I made as a district attorney directly impacted people’s lives: criminals, their victims, everyone’s families. There is always tremendous pressure to do the right thing, to demand accountability but with scrupulous fairness. I began painting to relieve that tension of responsibility and relax.

I met and admired many contemporary abstract artists in southern California like Michael Hall and Hans Ladislaus. So much so that I began to buy their original art to create my own art collection. One summer I finished a painting I was ready to hang next to those of artists I admired. Up it went and I have been painting ever since.

I was elected to Superior Court Judge in Orange County, CA in the summer of 2014. No longer an advocate for one side or another, I nonetheless still must make tough decisions that affect the lives of many people. I think I shall be painting for a long time to come.

I like a painting to take command of a room, so I like bright colors and shimmering metallic pigments of copper, gold, and silver. I have always admired spare, streamline design from the 1930’s, as well as wild and imaginative contemporary architecture. Both offer dramatic shapes and striking volumes with extraordinary texture. Much of my work is configured with these spaces in mind, very tall or very wide but very very slender.

I love to experiment with different forms. My two biggest problems are choosing what to paint out of the cacophony of ideas swirling in my brain, and once I start, deciding when a particular painting is actually finished. There are rules in abstract art, and no rules at all. There lies challenge and triumph.

I divide my painting between my home in Orange County and a small studio in Palm Springs, California. The light is everything, so I always paint outside. And I paint flat – I don’t even own an easel. I develop more energy standing over my work and moving around it. If it rains, I shake up a rye whisky Manhattan and brood about world events.