Born of an artist family, painting from the start!

     I was so very lucky to be born into the family that I had! My father ( a world war two navy veteran) was a photographer, involved with live jazz & blues, and an early pioneer of electronic media in Anchorage in the 1960's. He gave me a love of music, reading, history, independent films and long car rides in the country. I even got to meet Lou Rawls and James Brown in person after a show backstage because of my Dad! Thanks Dad. I love you and miss you. 
     My mother was the matriarch of our family. Small in stature, yet huge in every other way possible, she was always larger than life to me. Born in the 1920's and raised in a Tlingit native family in southeast Alaska, she had a unique beginning to life. Speaking Tlingit as her first lanquage, growing up in Alaska, she found herself in Seattle and later Chicago in the war years of the 1940's as a "Rosey the riveter". Because of her small size she could reach the inside of tight spaces in planes and submarines to weld. She also sang for the USO entertaining the troops in a singing trio named "Two hits and a Miss" with two tall gentlemen who sang back up behind her .
     Returning to Alaska, she continued her art studies more so than singing, after realizing painting was her first passion in the arts.
     In the mid 1950's she met my father, and I was born in the fall of 1956. Growing up with her tutelage in the visual arts and painting paved the way for me to understand and learn the ancient art of tattooing with good appreciation. As she always told me, "What we do is the language of light" she also told me to remember that "Painting and drawing is what art looks like, sculpture is what art feels like, dance is how art moves, music is what art sounds like, spoken word (poetry) is what art has to say" 
     Thanks Mom. I love you and miss you.