I was born and still live in the tiny village of Otter River, Massachusetts. I married my high school sweetheart, Betty, in 1972 and we are both still going strong. God never blessed us with children, but we do have over 108 nephews, nieces, grand-nephews and grand-nieces, great grandnephews, and great grandnieces and even a couple of great, great grandnephews and great, great grandnieces, so there have always been children in our lives. 

While I have always been a lover of visual art, I spent a huge portion of my life filling it with yet more children. I was a teacher, coach, and youth pastor for nearly 40 years. We often provided a home for teenagers who needed one. During that time, my main artistic expression was music. I sang with a men’s double quartet for 15 years during which we recorded two CDs. I also wrote the words and music for one Christian musical and part of another. Over the years, I experimented with a variety of other art forms but never had the time or commitment to get serious about any of them. 

Then, several years prior to my retirement, I had the opportunity to play a small part in starting a local art group for people who needed to set a specific time aside to work on their craft—no matter what it was or what the level of talent or experience was. Hosted by my church, this group proved to be the impetus I needed to make visual art a greater part of my life. As an untrained amateur, I experimented with a little bit of everything—paints, colored pencils, sketches, watercolors, scratch art, string art, scherenshnitte (fancy name for paper cutting), and photography, with a definite leaning toward paint and colored pencil. But, while I enjoyed each type of artistic expression, it was not compelling.  

Then the consequences of age began to accumulate, and I eventually found myself losing the fine motor skills required for most types of art--with the possible exception of photography. But I am no great photographer, so I needed to find my own niche. My research into the possibilities resulted in what I now do. I photograph one of my own original art pieces and then re-imagine it using a phone application and a computer program. This is not AI. I am always in control of the end result. While it might seem overly simple, it can take 100’s of iterations of the original before I get something I’m ready to share—if I find something at all. It’s an amalgam of the old with the new. And I love it. It’s a new way to find beauty in adaptation and new strength in creativity by expressing myself with the tools I’m still able to use and then to share the results with others.