Growing up in upstate New York opened my experiences and imagination to the wonders of the great outdoors. Big skies with billowy clouds in the summers pervade the skyscape, giving you a sense of wonder at the beauty and magnificence of Nature herself. Winding country roads lead you through acres of farm country, laden with weathered and mostly still working farmsteads. You'll see family farms where people have their hands in and on the Earth that provide us with our staple foodstuffs at farm stands and local weekly farmer's markets. Man's integration and interdependence with nature was clear to me at an early age from my immersion in the local agricultural environment. This early foundation and appreciation of both the bounties that surround us as well as the diligent hard work that shapes our lives, laid a groundwork for my beliefs in our individual and collective place in this world. Painting for me is both an extension and outgrowth. It is an expression of my love for the land that I roamed as a boy and young man, running through the cornfields near home or spending the idle summer afternoons gazing at the vastness and playfulness of the skies above. To reach for the skies with our souls held our innocent hearts in wonder and presentness, all the while chewing on a stalk of wild grass picked from a field along the way. I try to convey this sense of place, The American Place, whether it's a farm pasture field with a working barn, a lobster shack along a wharf, or a once fish shack that now serves as a summer residence. I try to convey that moment of joy and presence through the scenes of my paintings, without intention for nostalgia or sentimentality. Realizing; though, that those elements are inherent in these seemingly ordinary subjects, giving our imaginations a bit of free reign to wonder who has lived and worked there, how their lives were along the way, and how different or the same they are as yours and mine.