The Basics
My goal as an artist is to make art that’s part of a conversation. My favorite question is — How can beauty change the world? And my second question is — What does it mean to be in community? — a community where we become more cognizant of beauty and seek to sustain beauty. — a community where we treat each other as beautiful.
I also enjoy drawing from the deep well of art history. I am especially inspired by the magical world of Paul Klee, the lyrical world of Chagall, and the natural connections of the Group of Seven.
• I have studied with noted photographers, Ernst Haas, Freeman Patterson, Stephen Johnson, and John Paul Caponigro..
• I have participated in five artist-in-residence programs — Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Acadia National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, and Isle Royale National Park.
• I was awarded a solo show at the Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey, Michigan in the Fall of 2013. The show went on to several other exhibit venues in Michigan.
• My work is currently being represented by Synchronicity Gallery in Glen Arbor, Michigan.
• The December 2014 issue of Traverse Magazine did a feature article on my work.
• In 2016 I published a coffee table type book of my artwork entitled The Best of Sleeping Bear.
• In 2022 I published a second coffee table book titled Awake at Sleeping Bear. Both books are currently available through the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park concessions and local bookstores and galleries such as Synchronicity Gallery in Glen Arbor, The Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor, Leelanau Books in Leland, Bay Books in Suttons Bay, Brilliant Books in Traverse City, .The Book Store in Frankfort, The Book Nook in Montegue, The Bookman in Grand Haven, Schuler Books in Grand Rapids, and Schuler Books in Ann Arbor.
• I have been awarded top three artworks in several regional exhibits in the last 10 years. In the 2019 West Michigan Regional exhibit at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art my piece Cathedral received a juried award and the People’s Choice award
• My work can be found in many private and corporate collections.
My Current Artist's Statement — It evolves as I evolve as an artist.
Dostoyevsky penned in his novel The Idiot: “Beauty will save the world.” I define beauty as those things that bring about wonder, hope, and gratitude. Beauty as described by those three words are foundational my work as an artist. People need the enthusiasm of wonder, the forward thinking of hope, and the joy of gratitude if they are to meet and master the crucial challenges which stand before us as human beings.
And beauty, as I define it, is not always beautiful. By that I mean that some of my artwork may draw attention to “hard” subject matter.
I also believe that it is my duty as an artist to continually develop my skills and explore avenues of expression so that what I create speaks as clearly as possible to those that experience my artwork.
I believe my medium is best described as non-traditional photography. It begins with a camera and takes advantage of digital processing to achieve my vision.
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If you want to get a more complete picture of Bob and his artwork, check out his essays on living creatively and making art