Art runs in my family. My grandfather painted oil portraits, and some of my best memories were in his makeshift art studio –this tiny room nestled against the side of a modest house where you had to walk through a closet to access it –sort of like the wardrobe to Narnia. It was a gloriously messy hovel, a color-flecked cave with wrinkled paint tubes, brushes, and repurposed Gerber baby food bottles.

Animals lazed around the room, dogs on the floor, cats on bookcase bunks. At one point, an injured red tailed hawk convalesced on a perch –at once an irascible patient and delightful live model.

I even remember the smell of the turpentine he’d use — a smell that can today transport me 30 years into the past. 

When I could, I’d stay up late to watch, staring as he’d paint, unable to comprehend how faces and people and dogs and deer and falcons and family were conjured from a blank white canvas void. He’d explain his process sometimes, gesturing to his brush stroke, how he’d mix paint in careful flicks and dabs, and I would sometimes nod my understanding, but more often only observe, captivated by the closest thing to real magic I’ve ever seen. 

My grandfather taught me a lot about art, and I cherish the time I spent with him. Because of him, I now get to draw and paint and to share my work with you.

When I’m not sketching, I’m teaching Latin, and when I’m not reading the ancient texts of long dead authors, I’m enjoying the wonderful cacophony of dad life with three precocious little dudes. None of this would be possible, of course, without the ever-abiding patience and love of my wife Amanda.