THE LIFE OF AN ARITST

At the age of six I fell in love with art, in grade school art on Fridays was what I looked forward to each week. I remember making Christmas ornaments out of card board toilet paper rolls for the Christmas tree. All through school art was my main interest because there were no mistakes to be made, Art provided self esteem, love and a natural high like runners get. I loved staying up late drawing and listening to Johnny Cash. when doing Indian ink drawings, time stood still and I could see the ink filling the minute crevices in the paper. If that sounds like I was on drugs the answer is NO Drugs just a natural high. There was a love affair with certain brushes and pencils. In the late fifties my parents moved the family from a small town in Minn. to the big city of Seattle. No woods to explore so I would get up early in the morning and take my red wagon around to collect things that people placed on the curb for the garbage man to pick up, I found great treasures. At the age of twenty two I was working as a mechanic and fell in love with wore out gears and sprockets, my foreman showed me how to run a bead of weld and I practiced welding by creating art out of the scrap iron that we set out for the scrap man. Now at the age of sixty five I use a boom truck and trailer to gather my scrap iron I referrer to as rusty gold. I had always dreamed of one day having a sculpture park for people to come and see my creations. There were a lot of rejections along the way from museums to art galleries and at the time they were negatives which fueled a fire in side me to create my own museum and gallery. I now realize those negatives had to happen in order for me to create a four acre sculpture park at the base of Mount Rainer ten miles before the west entrance to the national park. The name of my park is Recycled Spirits of Iron and you can take a tour by searching for the video on youtube. I get visitors from all over the world who get a good dose of Americana art. I love sharing my creativity and showing what people can do with some imagination and a great pile of discarded items. Just remember art fills the soul with love and money just fills your pocket book, money does not provide happiness, when I die I will die happy and a soul filled with love. That folks is my story and I am sticking to it.