In 2004 a neighbor asked if I would provide art instruction to her then middle school daughter. I accepted not having any idea what it would become or how much fun it would be along the way.
Prior to this I’d taught linear perspective to the Landscape Architecture Department at Virginia Tech and digital modeling at Walt Disney Imagineering.
Well, one student led to two others & so on & so on… as the shampoo commercial goes. Over the last 20 years I’ve worked with over 500 people mostly in private or in small group instruction.
There are the 60+ home school children many of which had attention challenges or were on the autism spectrum. All of them had imaginations and a universe of energy.
There are close to 150 from the business world that have endured my Creativity: Myths and Methods workshop. A very special group of young ladies from the Tranquility Design Academy helped hone both the curriculum and my ability to deliver it in peace.
There are the scores of professional artists and strong amateurs, working to become professional, that I’ve helped spackle over the gaps in their education and understand their unique strengths.
I’ve guest lectured at The Barnes Foundation and the Steger Center for International Scholarship for the School of Architecture + Design in Riva San Vitale, Swizterland and a couple of dozen more schools, community art centers and private art groups.
And then there’s the middle & high school students that started it all. To date they have earned over $500,000 in scholarships from: VA Tech School of Architecture + Design, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), School of Art Institute Chicago (SAIC), Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), James Madison University (JMU), Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) and more.
While at Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) I mentored with John Hench. When I first met John he was in his 90’s and sitting at his Mac working on a Photoshop™ document with Illustrator™ in the background. All of our conversation ended up being about the power of color and form. I also mentored with Dave Durham who taught me how to empathize with competing interests and so much more that is difficult to verbalize.
I’ve also studied with Carolyn Anderson, Ned Mueller, Tom Gilleon and Wolf Kahn. Ned and I worked together on the renderings for the Hotel MiraCosta at Tokyo Disney Sea.
“We take pleasure in both moving out of equilibrium and in recovering it. Similarly we crave both balance and movement for the eye.”
– John Hench