As a visual artist living in the heart of Appalachia, the beauty in the surrounding hill country continually inspires me to paint. The way a sunset illuminates clouds, how the silhouette of a mountain ridge reflects on the surface of a bending river, or the way trees become moss-covered hollow sanctuaries with age; these  are the subjects to which I find myself drawn. 

I regularly paint en plein air using gouache and ink on watercolor paper, and create more detailed studies from photographs I take, using acrylic paint on wood panels or canvas. I believe it's important to nurture our skills at rendering naturalistic images from life in an increasingly digital visual world. This practice keeps me in touch with what I view as a basic human instinct to document and decipher our surroundings, and our place within them.