For years, my professional work with survivors of abuse and trauma showed me the worst that humanity could do to itself. Seeing the unkindness of one person to another, and seeing my own failures to live up to to my best moral potential as well, meant I was constantly exposed to the worst of ourselves. Not only was I hearing from survivors about the worst things they had endured, but I had found myself also becoming less kind, less humble, and less connected to others. 
My art is what helps me undo that damage in my own life. It helps me focus on what's beautiful in the world, which is why the people I portray in my paintings show peaceful, respectful, and fulfilled connections between each other and creation. You'll see men and women interacting as equals, relationships that are healthy, and reverent interactions between humans and nature. Creating each piece of art therapeutically reminds me to also strive to put myself back into balance, and to work to become the man I actually want to be as well. I haven't always been that person, but I'm working on it. Each painting is another step in my own efforts to become a better person, more humble, more respectful, and more free of my own past failures and regrets as a person. 
There have been times that my own life has gone astray, and I haven't fulfilled my own best potential. Art has shown me how to see beauty in things that aren't perfect, and that lesson has helped me understand my own flaws, and how to make progress in overcoming them without becoming completely defeated when I've failed. I've become a humbler person who is focused more today on what I can do to improve the world, and less on what I need from the world, as I used to be. 
It's working. Today I am closer to being that person than I was a year ago. I'm more patient, less brash, more thoughtful, kinder, and less materialistic than I was. I'm still working on it, but art, volunteering, counseling, and contemplation have all genuinely helped me change by reminding me what actually matters in life. I hope those good feelings continue in each home where a piece of my work finds its place; creating art has certainly helped clarify my own values.
​Today, I'm a better father, a better husband, and a better member of society, and I'm more focused now on what I can do to uplift others than on my own needs from others.  

"Trimming the Shanks" is a portrait of Ray Dorwart of Guthrie, Oklahoma, one of the last traditional cowboy boot makers. Ray works in a historic workshop with creaky wooden floors, stucco-covered brick walls, and tools that date back to the 1800s (including foot-pedal powered sewing machines). When he takes an order to make a pair of boots, the customer sometimes has to wait for years before they're ready, because Ray does everything by hand and is in such high demand. 
When I met Ray, we started spending time together so I could hear his stories and learn about the steps he takes to make a pair of boots. It was months before we were finally ready to begin planning this portrait.
"Trimming The Shanks" was accepted into the Oil Painters of America Western Regional Juried Show, and found its home during the 2018 Once Upon A Time in the West art show in Cripple Creek, Colorado. 

For more on Ray Dortwart: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-sGsr3ks4c

newsok.com/article/2547336/these-boots-made-for-working

This is one of the most special pieces I've done yet. It may look so simple--a man and teen girl goofing around at a western diner table over a sundae--but there's a lot more going on here. 
In 2014, I was in Sheridan, Wyoming on my way to a photoshoot in Montana when my transmission died and stranded me in town for four days. From my tiny motel room I walked to a nearby diner, and while eating I noticed that at a nearby table sat a classic Wyoming country grandfather and his teenage granddaughter--a weird, punky girl with a leather jacket and dyed hair. Grandpa, a cowboy to his core, could not have been more different from her, but they were talking, joking, laughing, and just enjoying every moment of their time together. There wasn't a moment between them that wasn't pure joy and humor. In fact, I got on my phone at the time and described it all, live, on my Facebook wall! 

I told the waitress that I wanted to buy their dinner. Afterward, the waitress told me, "You could not have picked two more deserving people to do that for!" She explained the story to me: the girl's single mother (grandpa's daughter) had died of cancer just two years before. Grandpa had taken steps to adopt the granddaughter so that she wouldn't go into a foster care system, even though it meant that the girl would have to leave her city life and come live with him in "cowboy country." So that's how a punky/gothy girl from the city came to be in a diner with her grandpa. And that's why they looks at each other with pure happiness and adoration. The waitress told me they ate there together 2-3 times every week, and were always that happy.
​
I waited two years before painting this because I wanted to get it exactly right, JUST how I remembered it. The teenage model is my son's best friend, and the grandpa is a Colorado cowboy/horse trainer I met in a diner here (and yes, approached out of the blue to ask for his help for this painting). For me, this piece is special because of the story it tells, and because it brings the lives of a cowboy elder and a young city teenager together in a way that I was lucky enough to see. I also like the juxtaposition of the young trendy cool teen girl with the older western elder; it shows that even as time moves on, we still find ways to connect to our traditions. 

Here are the original Facebook posts I wrote live while watching the scene:

    Running Eagle Falls in Glacier National Park is named for Pitamaka, "Running Eagle," a Blackfeet woman who performed her vision ceremony at the site in the early 1800s. Pitamaka became a warrior of great renown, even keeping a place in her father's warriors' council lodge. Running Eagle Falls remains a site of significance to the Blackfeet people to this day.
    This painting shows a group of young Blackfeet men passing in front of the falls, and spotting a red tailed hawk--a holy omen. I love this site in Glacier--the loud rush of the cold water and the rising mist are just amazing. It is almost magical how the slanted stones of the falls turn from flinty grey in direct sunlight to a warm, luminescent blue-orange at dawn or sunset. I often use golden sunlight in my work, and on the sloping shelves of stone it just seemed perfect.