  Bridal Wreath Falls  Self Portrait | A native of Montana, I have lived and worked as an architect in Tucson, Arizona for the last 36 years. Most of my immediate family has moved to Tucson as well, so after 36 years of living and working in the desert, my home is in “Montazona”. Music has always been a part of my life as well, and I have found that need happily satisfied in Tucson by playing my guitar, and singing with the Sons Of Orpheus, the Male Choir Of Tucson. The choir has taken several tours over the years and I have had the pleasure of singing a mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City and performing at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. We are applying to sing an Evensong in Westminster Abbey in London in 2020. We have several concerts throughout the year, highlighted by the annual Christmas Performances with the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus at Tucson’s historic mission church, San Xavier Del Bac. Designing buildings requires lots of creativity, while restrained by budgets, schedule, building regulations, agency reviews, and neighborhood reviews, among other challenges. Upon retirement 5 years ago, I was anxious to retain a creative outlet without all of the boundaries. The diversity of the landscape of the West and my love of this magnificent environment has driven my desire to share my view of this land with others through pastel paintings, and lately, oil paintings. I paint landscapes that are familiar to me, attempting to capture the impressions I am left with from frequent hikes I have taken throughout my life in my home state of Montana and my adopted state of Arizona. I select views of landscapes that capture sun, shadow, and changing weather conditions that interest me, allowing the ever dominant and changing sky to play a featured role in my paintings. I often place distant figures in my paintings, not only leaving the viewer an intriguing storyline to consider, but also providing a more familiar human scale to the vastness of our western landscapes.The power of nature is ever present in the quiet and the solitude of my walks and inspires me to share my emotional connections to these special places through my paintings. The Tucson Pastel Society has been a great place to advance my education in the art of painting and has been a source of many new friendships. When we were given our building a couple of years ago, I was “conscripted” into chairing the Building Committee and am re-living the challenge of finding creative resolutions to “surprises” of what an aged and neglected building brings, but once again, restricted by the “boundaries” of budget and regulations. Just like painting, when you are in the middle of working through the challenges, I would like to toss the whole thing, but perseverance and keeping the faith, the finished result can be very rewarding. There is still work to do. I think I’ll go paint.
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