Biography

I was born in 1944 at the end of the depression and the war and raised in the rural Midwest; small towns and cities. On the day of my birth the U.S. government declined to aid the Jews in the death camps. On my first birthday the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. All of my forebearers were Swedish immigrants mainly farmers, laborers and small merchants. My father was a rural pastor, a self-taught electrical engineer, and an inveterate experimenter.

I drew much as a child but mostly diagrams, plans, maps and the like. Conventional art, painting and drawing were left for rare school assignments and I never did well with assignments. I received my first encouragement in art from my high school art teacher, Andrew Labarbara. At his urging I entered a newspaper contest, receiving an “honorable mention” with a Bronze Palette which was presented to me at the school’s annual awards day, a first in art for the school.  

At Northwestern Michigan College another encouraging teacher, artist Paul Welch, hired me as his assistant on a very large stained glass commission he had undertaken. After my time in the army and Viet Nam (where I and another artist were charged with putting the battalion herald on all the company file folders with stencils and markers), I entered the BFA program at the University of Minnesota in printmaking. I worked closely with printmakers Karl E. Bethke and Zig Priede, and painters Peter Busa, Hank Rowan, and Raymond Hendler. I studied art history under Melvin Waldfogel, Norman Cannedy, and Sidney Simon. Continuing in printmaking in the MFA program at the same university I also studied with printmaker Malcolm H. Myers, my advisor. All of these teachers and artists left their mark on my work. 

After several years of college teaching, when things were going well, I resigned to work as an artist but was soon overwhelmed by heavy seas in the form of extreme circumstances which made it impossible to pursue a career. The severe distress took a toll on my health though I continued to paint with difficulty until the mid-nineties when eventually the motive to paint fell away.  

Having converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church and the opportunity presenting itself, I took up the study and practice of icon painting in the Byzantine-Russian tradition which I pursued for several years. I learned a greatg deal but despite having all the requisite abilities etc. it never quite fully took for me.  I was sort of a "place holder" for my other painting. 

Around 2012, finally getting my medications in order and my health issues and other things under control, my painting resumed stronger and better than it was before, giving me a new lease on life and  on my career.

In recent years two other relevant factors have come to light. At age 50 I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and at age 70 with Aspergers Syndrome. Of course, while they explain a lot of things, these have been there all along. These affect my thinking and my functioning in both negative and positive ways. It can't be denied that they have tempered my work in various ways. 

Much credit for my accomplishments is due to the patience, assistance, hard work and encouragement of Marilyn, my wife of fifty two years.