About

Jim, the youngest of five children, was born in southern Arizona where his parents ran a small hotel and café in the tiny farming community of Sunizona. Soon afterward, his father returned to the construction trade as a Superintendent for a national firm specializing in the construction of banking institutions meaning he and his family would move quite often.  Having lived in every time zone, and four years in Germany during his second tour in the Air Force, he has had ample opportunity to get to know a diverse range of cultures and customs both in his youth and throughout adulthood.  Graduating high school in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, he tends to consider that area “home” when asked where he is from. After separating from the service, he relocated to be with Michelle, also a graduate of Pagosa Springs High who he would soon marry, to Austin where she happened to be living. Using the electrical skills learned from his time as an aircraft electro-environmental systems technician, Jim became a commercial electrical superintendent and later a Quality Control inspector for a large firm in central Texas.  He moved back to Arizona in 2010 after Michelle earned a PhD from the University of Texas in Child and Adolescent Psychology and was offered a position at ASU.  It was this circumstance that afforded him an opportunity to return to school and seek a BFA in Sculpture while also studying 3D modeling and printing using programs such as SolidWorks and Rhinoceros, also earning his certificate in AutoCAD. Two of Jim’s greatest influences in life have been music and art, which play greatly into his work. It was his mother that had an interest in these areas as both an artist and one-time musician, while his father, a pragmatic individual steeped in a Protestant work ethic, set the mold for Jim’s insistence on quality and attention to detail. It is the coming together of these opposites that now drives him to create a range of works that, while filling a need, makes one feel as if they are indulging in both luxury and self expression.