About
I first developed the sketchbook habit as a student of landscape architecture at Rhode Island School of Design. Subsequently, as a practicing landscape architect, I used drawing as an essential design tool, to visualize a design and communicate with clients. After joining the faculty of landscape architecture at UC Davis, I taught drawing and drafting, along with design studios and courses in landscape history. It was drawing with clear rules; mostly a means to an end, rather than the end in itself. But I encouraged students to develop a sketchbook habit and I would draw in my own sketchbooks, especially on hikes and when traveling, aiming to capture a sense of place beyond photographs, enthralled by time-honored traditions of landscape representation that glorify Nature and crop humankind out of the picture. I took up plein air painting, reveling in the escape afforded by that practice.
Now retired from landscape architecture and enjoying the luxury of working in a studio, I still begin with sketches and landscape is still my favorite subject, but I’m framing the landscape differently, in a more subjective and contemporary light, focusing on subject matter like parking lots and salvage yards, highways and dumpsters, on color and light, paint and brushstrokes. My painting practice has become more critical and irony has crept into the picture. For me the idea of landscape is endlessly seductive and every painting is an exploration.
Recent art exhibits:
July 11 – August 8, 2026. “Everything Must Go,” Manna Gallery, 473 25th St, Oakland, CA
Sept. 15 - Oct. 5, 2025. “Perspectives/SF: The Artists of 1890 Bryant Street Studios,” Sausalito Center for the Arts, 750 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA
July 17 - August 23, 2025. “My World in Blue,” Petaluma Art Center, 230 Lakeville St., Petaluma, CA
June 1 - July 5, 2025. “Waste Not,” Building Resources Gallery, 701 Amador St., San Francisco, CA
April 5 - May 4, 2025 “Joie Debris,” ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA
Feb. 2024 SF Marin Food Bank Auction, Studio Gallery, 1641 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA
Nov - Dec. 2023 “Tiny Show” Studio Gallery, 1641 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA
Feb. 2023 SF Marin Food Bank Auction, Studio Gallery, 1641 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA
Sept 2022 - Jan 2023 “From Sand Dunes to Forest: Canopy Trees of Golden Gate Park,” Helen Crocker Russell Library of Horticulture, S.F. Botanical Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
May - June 2022 “Delicious” Studio Gallery, 1641 Pacific Ave, San Francisco, CA
Jan 2019 “Tree Portraits: Golden Gate Park,” Pastels by Heath Massey, Helen Crocker Russell Library of Horticulture, San Francisco Botanical Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
Aug. 2018 “Growing Habitat” Descanso Gardens, La Cañada Flintridge, CA
Oct 2017 “Loving Golden Gate Park,” SFWA Gallery, San Francisco, CA
For a CV of my professional and academic career: CV LINK