Biography
About me
Pre 1980
Born outside Atlanta, GA at the end of April, 1945. Eight months later and I would have been a “Boomer”. My good fortune! Reared in Pensacola, FL. Attended Florida State University as a Fine Arts major. Entered the U.S. Navy in 1965. Served two years active duty and 11 more in the reserves.
Worked as a technician A.T.&T for nine years. Started my own business carving, routing, and sandblasting signs and designing and building custom exterior lighting for most of the home builders in South Florida for 17 years. Became very tired of not being paid. Closed up my shop and began searching for my “niche”.
1981 – 1991
The dots were pretty easily connected since I had wanted to design automobiles since the second grade. When I was at FSU, I worked for the Florida Department of Development and Tourism as a photographer. I covered major events including the sports car races at Daytona and Sebring. Tough gig! After I left A.T.&T., a friend invited me to join an IMSA race team. As it turned out, I not only fueled the cars, but handled the graphics and, eventually, became team manager. We started out running a GTU class Mazda RX7 and graduated to a Mazda powered Argo JM-19 in the Prototype Light division. Virtually every race we participated in had Vintage racing the same weekends. I found myself gravitating more and more toward the historical side of the sport. One of the team principals suggested that I produce a couple of wood replicas of the vehicles that most appealed to me… and I did. A Ferrari shark nose open wheel formula car… and a D-Type Jaguar. I displayed them on the tailgate of my Explorer in the infield and they were both sold so quickly that I had to ask my new clients if I could hang onto the sculptures as examples to display the rest of the weekend. I returned home with three additional commissions. And the rest is…
1992 – 2001
1992 was a life changer for our entire family. In August, Hurricane Andrew destroyed our home in South Miami… and our eldest was not only completing his senior year at the University of Michigan, he was being projected as a second round pick in the upcoming NFL draft. He drafted me to be his business manager. While I was rebuilding our domicile, I was also meeting with every agent, financial planner and tax guru on earth. What an incredible education I received in the months right after a CAT5 storm decided we had a target painted on our roof. By the time the big kid was drafted 14th pick in the first round… we had a financial expert, a separate tax pro… and an agent. I wanted separate individuals that would have to agree amongst themselves what was best for their “client”… a twenty two year old with absolutely no grasp of the arena he was about to enter. Oh, he understood football. Well enough for the Cleveland Browns to use their coveted first pick to choose a center from the Go Blue roster. Eight years and 102 games later it had all worked out pretty well. He walked away from the game, bought a home on the water on One of the southern Keys, married his college sweetheart, and settled in as a Conch.
It took me two years to rebuild the house. Less than a year later, we were burglarized. Broad daylight break in. Five 13-18 year old future professional criminals. After I (with the major help from one of Dade County’s finest detectives) got all of our possessions back and I outlasted the public defender to get the eldest thief sent to prison, we decided we had enjoyed enough of sunny South Florida. We moved to the Piedmont area of North Carolina and never looked back. We established a Not-For-Profit, benefiting homeless and abused kids and those with serious illnesses. My spouse and I ran “The Art Box Kids” for two decades.
2002 – Present
I was finally able to build a “proper” studio for creating my artwork. The other three and a half acres are home to goats, Japanese Koi, chickens, German Shepherds, cats, and of course, my spouse of 54 years and myself. Our two daughters live close by… and each of our three perfect children has given us a beautiful and brilliant granddaughter. Add the fact that I have been playing music with one of my best buddies for the past two decades… and that it took 20 years to complete my Tribute Cobra… I am a happy camper! Fairytales can come true!
ABOUT MY SCULPTURES
As for the nuts and bolts of my sculptures: I chose, at the outset of this adventure, to work in wood… exotic wood to be specific. Rosewood, Purpleheart, Wenge, Cocobolo, Gaboon Ebony, etc. I make all my metal parts: wheels, trim, framework, whatever. I use brass, aluminum, and steel. The most difficult decision I had to make was “how” to render the sculptures. How much… or how little… detail. My own definition of my presentation is “stylized”. I attempt to capture the lines of the original while emphasizing some feature that is specific to the original. A piece of art as opposed to a detailed replication, if you will.
The process has been interesting for certain. My original sculptures had tires made of the same wood as the body. OK. But not to my liking. Every sculpture now has Gaboon Ebony tires. Little things are not always so little. Subtle detail is not an oxymoron.
SCALE:
I started working in 1/10th scale. I created almost 50 cars before deciding to leap up to 1/4 scale. Of course the planes and motorcycles are in an appropriate scale based on how they present when displayed.
“LEFTOVER EXOTIC WOOD”:
The doohickeys and watchamacallits I create are made from drop off pieces from the commissioned sculptures. The exotic woods are both expensive and hard to come by. Wasting even small cutoffs is not acceptable and referring to them as “scraps” seems almost blasphemous. And so… I make kaleidoscopes and letter openers and barrettes. Win, win.
