Hi,

My name is Bob.

BIO: I am a former art teacher, now retired and living in Washington state, near Monroe. For the last 28 years I taught for the Dept. of Defense Dependents School system in Germany, near the Luxemburg border. For the last 19 of those years, I taught art and multi-media to high school students. Now that I'm retiired, I hope to continue my own work. Teaching public school, and attempting to do one's own work is quite exhausting, both mentally and physically.

Up until computers came into my classroom (about 1989), I was working in photography, drawing, and painting. With the new computers, I was suddenly wondering if there was a place for the computer as a tool for me, the artist. I played with Photoshop 3, MacPaint, MacDraw, and an early version of Painter. I thought, "Great for graphic design, but I'm undecided on wheter it is worth the cost to use it as an artist's tool."

Not long thereafter, we became more aware of environmental and health issues involving artists' materials. I read that some artists were switching to digital media to avoid the toxicity of solvents and the like. That got me rethinking the idea of digital media. Now I use non-digital media minimally, except for basic graphite and pen & ink media. But I'm not so satisfied, either. I always loved the tactile part of working with traditional materials, and the mouse of my computer doesn't give me that. I started using the digital tablet, but again, the surface is too smooth. I'm still experimenting with finding a balance between the tactile and the digital. We'll see where it leads.

In the meantime, I invite you to visit when you can and see what develops in the experimentation of the digital medium as well as the concepts and ideas that are inspired by it.