Born in 1945 & raised on a farm in Northwestern Kansas the eldest son in a large extended family… somehow even there I became fascinated with art at an early age.

Unlike other stories, no one ever told me I couldn’t be an artist, perhaps because I was already seemed such a quaint notion in that setting.

I began a reputation as a painter in Kindergarten. My parents, curiously & courageously, supported individuality. I took great advantage… while taking great care as well...

I did have other interests & dreamed about other possible lives, but I majored in painting at The University of Denver [DU], receiving a BFA in 1967, along with the Faculty’s Award for "highest marks & showing greatest promise".

During those college years I took a part time job at a small jewelry shop & began picking up basic repair & manufacturing techniques. There were no instructors or classes in such "crafts" then at DU, so I continued to educate myself in workshop… asking questions & following my own lights.

I discovered early on that I could support myself easier as a jeweler than I could as a painter. I set up studio & worked with a growing clientele on commissioned pieces such as wedding rings, mountings for stones, & numerous constructions in which I played with both my clients’ visions & my own fantasies.

I own a sporadic wanderlust… Uprooting alternating with long periods of becoming deeply, sometimes quietly, quite settled.

After more than a decade in Denver, I moved to Sedona, Arizona.

For 14 years I worked as a studio jeweler there, while meditating the enchantment of hiking those Red Rocks.

It was in Sedona that I began the exploration of Bells.

In a long held dream toward Northern California, Sonoma County became real next, & a big garden just beyond my studio door for seven years…

I turned 50 in that garden’s compost.

1996 saw my move to Seattle & an urban studio two blocks from the Pike Place Market. I loved the stimulating change from my long-held solitude in several rural lives.

Four years later I floated a ferry ride away to Vashon Island, where I have found the best of all my places. A very social near isolation!

With a view of Tahoma [Mt. Rainier] from my studio window, I have a sweet garden too, all on a cliff, which overlooks the Puget Sound.

Living an eight+years relationship with my partner Stephen Silha, whom I love even more than the Bells.

I can elaborate as we continue… step ahead please…