BIOGRAPHY
I was born and raised in a generic home located in one of the many developing suburbs in Colorado. Soon an example of American capitalism forced its way in next door, a megamall. And the quiet, out of the way area became a bustling, jumbled up mess of same minded, boring west coast clones. Soon stripmalls, autolots and fastfood chains swarmed to fill in all the gaps. I had to flee; my refuge was an art school in the heart of a decaying city that never recovered from the loss of industry – Baltimore. A violent, glum & disparaging city, I spent 4 incredible years being educated at the Maryland Institute College of Art. It left an indelible mark; it helped create the open minded, yet distinctly process oriented artist that I am today. I stayed a 5th year & lived in a small apartment in a large old, mansion row-home. Located next to some low income projects; there I honed in and focused my paintings. It was during this time that my constant prying into the personal lives of friends led to paintings filled with psychological explorations. This is what interested the admissions committee at Yale where I where would go to grad school.
There I found was attracted to the diverse body of students. While the overall nature of the students was full of a creative vigor, I was to find, the unfortunate problem was the politics generated by an intense, hard-working, mostly arrogant and egocentric group of artists. I found myself rebelling against this rebellious group. This was unnecessary & ultimately counter productive as I discovered the art world in general was just like the Yale School of Art & I wasn’t going to escape it - ever. Still with those philosophical differences, I found a solid base of friends to work with & to be inspired by.
After graduating, I was offered a 2 year teaching appointment. It was a Lecturer position – a fixed two year term professor position that had me teaching drawing & painting to enthusiastic undergrads. I also conducted one on one critique’s with the grad-students. This, along with working with the faculty members whom I had previously had gotten along with the least, proved be to be a tremendous task. I was too young & hadn’t been out on my own long enough. Being nearly the same age as the grad-students had me constantly paired up with some that were really aggressive & temperamental, who felt I had nothing to offer. Students would sign up to speak with me to just take the opposite position and argue. Fortunately this was not the case with the undergrads; they were great listeners and huge workers who faced up to the tasks presented to them. With the undergrads, it wasn’t like a job at all; it was like it was meant to be. But alas, it wasn’t going to last, the two years went by quickly & my hope of finding another job vanished into the sea of the other myriad MFA students from around the world all vying for those few jobs.
With nothing else to do I moved to New York City. It was easy for me - my girlfriend was already down there working on a Masters in Architecture. I came without a job & at a difficult time; it was September 2001. Before 9-11, I had a couple of interviews & there were jobs, after… nothing. It took 3 months, almost filling for bankruptcy & dozens of phone calls to find a Preparator position at Christie’s New York in Photography.
I assumed the job was temporary, a job that I would leave behind. I didn’t expect to gain any knowledge from being there, however coupled with real life in NYC, what I was to gain was unexpected & immeasurable. Lessons can be hard to learn and yet again I found myself on the outside of the established politics. By the time I realized my error and moved discretely to a safer place and attempted advance at Christie’s, I had the unthinkable happen. Our wonderful new boss conspiring to have me & a few others removed as to make way for his old team from a rival auction house take our jobs. What was worse was how HR schemed with my boss to make this happen. I fought back and ended up helping unionize the Art Handler’s.
Just prior to negotiations, I was appointed as Shop Steward until we had a contract. It took months, but we finally wrestled through the Union busting and we were finally able to get a contract. During this tumultuous period, somehow I was able to get married to my lovely Korean girlfriend. It was a wonderful time, we went to South Korea and then to Paris. However Christie’s nonsense loomed just behind me. Being in a Union and having a contract was unfortunately not enough and it became a war: company vs. the employees. And two years of chaos ensued. The company’s favorite method was twisting the minds of a large swath of our gullible work-mates. They cleverly and consistently manipulated infighting. Divide and conquer - and it was working. Every time one fire was put out, there was always another. When I had to be voted in as Shop Steward the company tried get their guy voted in instead. It was horrible. I overwhelmingly won, but secretly I had hoped someone competent would have stepped up and did it instead.
At first I kept being told oh, “The Company is just going through growing pains. They just need time to get used to having a Union.” But it got worse, not better. A few months after the contract and right before the ‘Work Rules’ were laid out, my wife and I had a cute little baby boy, Justin. Such a magical moment. Priorities shifted, and I should have left Christie’s. Or instead tried to pull back and let someone else take charge. But there was no one to hand the reins to. Eventually, after battle after battle which included me filling numerous Labor Board charges I just couldn’t take it anymore. My artwork was suffering. I was unhappy and apprehensive all the time. I had been exploring black & white photography and I finally felt like I needed to take it somewhere. I needed a new job were there was mutual respect. No more underhanded garbage.
Without letting anyone know, I began to apply to schools for teaching. If I couldn’t find a college level job, I was just going to have to go through the motions and teach high school students instead. Fortunately I was accepted into Queens College’s program and I was able to put in notice. On my way out I sent the whole company an email telling them how I felt. I guess I should have run out of the building after hitting the send button. But I stayed as there was going to be cake and wine. Well Christie’s got the last laugh and through me out of the building. Since then I have been busily being a college student, an artist in transition and of course a father and a husband.
