Like most children, I drew enthusiastically throughout my childhood; however, despite a post-college stint working in a university art history department, I did not sign up for my first real art class until the age of 37, in 2018. I’d passed the Art Students League, on 57th St. in Manhattan, countless times, but it took me years to work up the courage to walk in and register.

My first attempt at a portrait looked like this:

But I kept trying, and things got a little bit better, although I spent several months repeatedly trying and failing to identify the appropriate amount of space between the model’s eyes and ears. (Believe it or not, the model in the drawing below is actually the same as in the one above!)

But things kept improving…

And then I got a little more ambitious and decided to try painting. This was my first attempt, in the fall of 2019:

Not an unmitigated disaster, to be sure, but not exactly Old Master-level either.

Out of sheer stubbornness, though, I decided to stick with it. There wasn’t really a moment when things clicked in. Rather, it’s been a long, slow, cumulative and often frustrating process. After spending the better part of a year away from New York, where I’ve otherwise lived since 2006, I began studying at the Art Students League full-time in 2023.

So now, the more typical artist-y statement stuff:

I am most drawn to the psychological aspects of portraiture, to the experience of trying to evoke the model’s character and sensibility on the canvas. My goal is to create work that is interesting, that holds the viewer’s gaze and draws them in, as opposed to work that is merely beautiful. I do my best to find a balance between spontaneity and development–that is, between holding onto the sense of gesture and energy that comes right at the start of a pose, and working into the nuances (which, as I’ve come to learn, is very different from trying to paint details). I currently find it easiest to walk this tightrope while painting alla prima (generally two same-day sittings, about six hours total), which I try to do at least once a week. In my more extended paintings (1-3 weeks), the main question/problem that now engages me most is how to decide which aspects of a sitter to render more fully, and which to leave more abstract.

The masters I have spent the most time looking at recently, and whose work interests me the most, are Velázquez, Hals, Sorolla, and of course Sargent–painters who often give the impression of great looseness, but who are actually quite calculated in their decisions.

My principal teachers at the League include Robin Smith, John Varriano, Jerry Weiss, Sam Goodsell, and Jon DeMartin. I’ve also studied briefly with Max Ginsburg, Ricky Mujica, Rick Piloco, and Frank Porcu.