CREATIVE INTENT…
Ensō…a circle—simple but infinite.
In Zen, it represents enlightenment, freedom, emptiness; the quiet void where all things begin.
It holds the visible and the unseen, the perfect and the flawed, the full and the empty.
It is beauty in imperfection, the art of letting go and a deep connection that binds all things.
Drawn in one breath, one fluid stroke— ensō is the present and reveals the maker’s authentic self.
Each stroke is a mirror— the hand reveals the heart, unguarded, whole, fleeting.
To draw ensō is to practice stillness.
It is to arrive, again and again, precisely in the present—
there is no end, no final destination—only this moment, unfolding, perfectly incomplete.
Its imperfection is its beauty—perfectly imperfect.
It is the same with photography.
Each image like a circle, returning to the present, a ‘decisive moment’ in the life of the maker—
where subject and maker dissolve in one breath, one press of the shutter.
There is no past, no future—only now.
My images are not always sharp or clear.
I am not seeking precision but presence. I am trying to capture more than my eyes see.
What matters is what my heart feels—the pulse beneath the surface, emotion in the light and form.
Sometimes the subject comes into focus;
more often, it remains veiled only to be understood in it’s own time.
Like the ensō is more than a circle, I hope my images are more than what they depict.
The shutter falls—
Perfectly imperfect. Complete. Exposed.
‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.’
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
BIO…
I was born and raised on the blue-collar Northeast Coast, the son of a right-brain mother and a left-brain father. My early years were spent commuting between their separate worlds—literally and figuratively. Eventually, I settled in my left brain. As a child of divorce, it seemed the sensible path— one that promised stability and financial security. That led me to attend Syracuse University’s School of Management when in reality, I longed to be in the School of Visual Art.
My heart was never at home in the East, either. I dreamt of cycling and skiing in the mountains. So after graduation, I pointed a candy-apple-red Jeep Cherokee West, with a duffle bag in the backseat, bike and skis on the roof. My only thoughts were of chasing adventures and snow in the wild blue yonder of the West but along the way I landed a job with Nike in Oregon.
A summer job morphed into a career working in manufacturing, product creation, innovation, and general management. I lived and worked in Oregon, China, Vietnam and Taiwan and adventured many more places that my younger self would never have imagined or heard of. After almost three decades, in 2018, I stepped away to return to my roots—making and expressing myself rather than executing someone else’s vision.
Today, I am a photography-based fine artist and maker, living beside Mt. Hood, Oregon. I paint what I feel with the camera—seeking to capture that fleeting, authentic moment between what my eyes see and my heart feels.
Through my work, I hope to connect authentically and move others on a non-verbal, emotional level—and perhaps, in the process, reunite my own divorced left and right sides.
‘All my life, my heart has sought a thing I cannot name’
~Hunter S Thompson