revised december 21, 2006

born in plzen chechoslovakia (now the czech republic) in 1965 and brought to the united states by my parents. we were fortunate enough to get out legally in 1969 after the prague spring, a communist crackdown to re-establish censorship, oppression and other wonderful communist ways.

i have been interested in visual art ever since i can remember. my earliest memories are from when i was about 4 or 5 when i traced disney characters from my coloring books and then colored my traced pictures. i was never heavily encouraged to use my artistic ability i think mainly because being an artist was just not something thought of as a respected profession or something that one had little chance of being successful in. i went on through the public school system in suburban chicago. loathed high school as most teenagers do but was very happy to attend my first high school art classes (blow-off class to most, heaven for me). in high school is where i learned everything i needed about colors, mainly mixing red yellow and blue to make virtually any color. to this day my palette hasn't strayed far from this concept although i will bring out the occasional burnt sienna or yellow ochre. other than high school i am a self taught artist. after high school i had pretty exclusively pursued work in the normal business world and can't say that i haven't learned anything from the experience, but i have always somehow intermittently found time to try and keep my latent art career alive. and felt very strongly that i would come back to it when i got any inkling of a chance. in early 2005 after losing my office job of almost 15 years to a bankruptcy shut down, the opportunity finally came and i decided to pursue my passion for art full time. i am proud to say that after selling over 80 works in one gallery alone in about 1 year i feel comfortable calling myself an established artist.