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 landscape history. It was drawing with clear rules; mostly a means to an end, rather than the end in itself. But I encouraged a sketchbook habit in my students and I would draw in my own sketchbooks, especially on hikes and when traveling, aiming to capture a sense of place beyond photographs.
Traditions of landscape representation in various cultures have long glorified Nature. Gardens and parks, as well as paintings and photographs, depict landscape ideals that we have all internalized: flowery meads and verdant greenswards, craggy mountains, white water tumbling over rocks, waves lapping at sunbathed beaches, windswept plains backed by purple mountains’ majesty . . . . . the pastoral, the sublime, the picturesque, the romantic. I am as seduced by these ideals as anyone; Nature has always been my church. But these images, lovely as they are, cannot obscure the impacts that humans have on the planet — especially now, in the face of climate change.
As both a landscape architect and a landscape painter, I have always lived with the conflict between the ideal and the real in landscape representation and this tension is at the core of all my work. Over the last few years 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:
Sept.18 - Nov. 13, 2026. “”Summertime,” Studio 55 Martinez, 55 Howe Rd., Martinez, CA
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