After our student film began winning awards, I worked as an assistant editor for a year or so on a particular feature and then, watching my options dry up in Pittsburgh, I moved to Los Angeles in 1992 in the a sort of classic Kerouac style cross country trip. I’ve been in LA ever since and now have my studio in the artist colony of the Brewery.
As for photography, it's as the story always goes, I was in love with an older woman. She was 12 and I was 10. A group of families were all vacationing together near Ocean City, she was with them and I had the largest crush on her. One afternoon she walked out of the ocean and wrapped herself in a towel and just stood there for a moment pensively lost in thought. For some reason it was that unguarded moment that triggered something in me. My father had just bought a camera (a Nikon F) and I grabbed it without thinking. The magic thing about this is that she didn’t move. She held that moment for me as I took what was my first picture. 1/125 at f:11. I still remember the settings. It wasn’t just the picture that changed everything for me, but that act of trust. They say you always paint the same picture and on some level I see that being true.
Then 12 years ago I discovered/developed the “oilgraph” technique that I use in much of the work. I was searching for an emergent look to the work, a light coming out from the darkness and realized that it needed to be something physically dark, so I turned to oil color. It’s now become one of my primary techniques. I’ve used it in everything from fashion campaigns to museum work.