The Art Studio

 

After graduating from the University of Washington’s art program I rented a studio in downtown Seattle. The loft was divided into individual work spaces on the top floor of the old Shorey’s Bookstore on First and Union streets not far from the Pikes Place Market. I paid $80. a month rent and had four six foot windows that looked across the water towards the Olympic Mountains. This was many years ago and First Avenue was a shabby area of pornography shops and stripper venues. Prostitutes would haunt the bus top at the entrance of my building. I would spend all day either working on fine art or the freelance graphic design jobs that I would occasionally get. It was a rather austere life with my wife at the time working as a receptionist. I was rather good at drawing with pen and ink and my work began to evolve. I started increasing the size of the pieces and began adding soft pastels to create landscape color fields. I had several joint and solo shows of the work over the next two years until financial pressures had me looking for a more stable source of income. I took a graphic art project management contract job with the health insurance company Blue Cross of Washington and Alaska. That contract turned into a full time job which I remained at for over fourteen years. I stopped producing art during those many years. Seattle, Washington