Long Bio
1951-1981
A “native-at-heart” seventh generation Tennessean, by a military fluke I was born in Savannah, Georgia. After earning a B.S. in criminology and comparative religion and M.S. in mass communication at Florida State I was the associate producer and sound recorder for two PBS documentaries at the Tallahassee affiliate. During college I began to feed a sustaining appetite for international travel by living in Florence, Italy for five months. Returning home to Nashville in 1978, and after a brief but instructive stint of restaurant work, I administered the Tennessee Arts Commission literary and media arts programs for two years.
1981-1990
I resigned the arts commission to begin freelancing in 1981, but maintained contact with the commission primarily as a literary and artists-in-education grant review panelist. My first extended freelance client was Time-Life Books and Records for a civil war and a country music series. Always attracted to the visual arts, my drawings were juried into the Central South Exhibition at the Parthenon in 1983. Graphic design, photography, and scriptwriting preceded a fortuitous beginning as a freelance curator with the Tennessee State Museum in 1984. An independent contractor during the 1980s, in 1988 I became the co-director of the Sinking Creek Film Celebration, the forerunner of the Nashville Independent Film Festival. That same year I became a visual arts aesthetic education teaching artist for the Nashville Institute for the Arts, a relationship that continues now under the umbrella of the Tennessee Performing Art Center’s ArtSmart program.
1990-2000
Curatorial work expanded in the 1990s as I began to collaborate with local, regional, and national museums to plan and develop their social history, sports, humanities, botanical, and arts exhibits. One of the most significant contributions was the research and writing with the Tennessee State Museum for the granite-engraved Tennessee Bicentennial Capitol Mall, a 19-acre urban interpretive park. Religion reviews for Publisher’s Weekly and articles for other magazines and journals supplemented the mix. For fun I began playing with printmaking, papermaking. and bookbinding. By the end of the decade I had also edited my first anthology. Published by Menasha Ridge Press, Blue Mountain: A Spiritual Anthology Celebrating the Earth was recognized by Amazon.com as one of their “Top 10 Spiritual Books of 2000.”
2000-2010
A series of regional nature reference books, Dangerous Wildlife, a second nature anthology Canticles of the Earth for Loyola Press, and A Guide to the Natchez Trace Parkway followed within five years. Dangerous Wildlife in California and Nevada won the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Bronze “Nature” Award in 2002, and the Natchez Trace volume was a 2006 finalist for a Benjamin Franklin Award sponsored by PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association. In 2004 I choreographed my first dance, “Atma Jyoti,” for the University School of Nashville. Simultaneously, research sponsored primarily by the Colonial Dames resulted in a 2005 “tnportraits.org” website that now documents over 1,500 portraits in Tennessee. In that year a partnership with internationally known mosaic artist Sherri Warner Hunter and local elementary school students produced a gift to Fairview, Tennessee of its first three public sculptures. Collaborating with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, an encompassing history of country music, Will the Circle Be Unbroken: The Definitive Illustrated History of Country Music, featuring my picture research was published by Dorling Kindersley UK in the fall of 2006.
2010-
I wrote my first plays, one of which was selected for Nashville's Ten-Minute Playhouse. After staging a reading of my full-length script Diamonds in the Dark, a comedy-tragedy about dying, I continue to revise it and seek workshop opportunities. I began producing smaller-scale exhibits for local government institutions such as The City of Forest Hills and Nashville Public Library. A new city guide series about wildlife launched with Wild Cincinnati and Wild Chicago, both published by Menasha Ridge Press of Birmingham, Alabama. A new venture emerges in assisting people with crafting and preserving their ethical wills, personal photographs, and stories. This has lead to designing and producing books. I continue to write, teach, research, speak, and create. Oh, yes, and think.
1951-1981
A “native-at-heart” seventh generation Tennessean, by a military fluke I was born in Savannah, Georgia. After earning a B.S. in criminology and comparative religion and M.S. in mass communication at Florida State I was the associate producer and sound recorder for two PBS documentaries at the Tallahassee affiliate. During college I began to feed a sustaining appetite for international travel by living in Florence, Italy for five months. Returning home to Nashville in 1978, and after a brief but instructive stint of restaurant work, I administered the Tennessee Arts Commission literary and media arts programs for two years.
1981-1990
I resigned the arts commission to begin freelancing in 1981, but maintained contact with the commission primarily as a literary and artists-in-education grant review panelist. My first extended freelance client was Time-Life Books and Records for a civil war and a country music series. Always attracted to the visual arts, my drawings were juried into the Central South Exhibition at the Parthenon in 1983. Graphic design, photography, and scriptwriting preceded a fortuitous beginning as a freelance curator with the Tennessee State Museum in 1984. An independent contractor during the 1980s, in 1988 I became the co-director of the Sinking Creek Film Celebration, the forerunner of the Nashville Independent Film Festival. That same year I became a visual arts aesthetic education teaching artist for the Nashville Institute for the Arts, a relationship that continues now under the umbrella of the Tennessee Performing Art Center’s ArtSmart program.
1990-2000
Curatorial work expanded in the 1990s as I began to collaborate with local, regional, and national museums to plan and develop their social history, sports, humanities, botanical, and arts exhibits. One of the most significant contributions was the research and writing with the Tennessee State Museum for the granite-engraved Tennessee Bicentennial Capitol Mall, a 19-acre urban interpretive park. Religion reviews for Publisher’s Weekly and articles for other magazines and journals supplemented the mix. For fun I began playing with printmaking, papermaking. and bookbinding. By the end of the decade I had also edited my first anthology. Published by Menasha Ridge Press, Blue Mountain: A Spiritual Anthology Celebrating the Earth was recognized by Amazon.com as one of their “Top 10 Spiritual Books of 2000.”
2000-2010
A series of regional nature reference books, Dangerous Wildlife, a second nature anthology Canticles of the Earth for Loyola Press, and A Guide to the Natchez Trace Parkway followed within five years. Dangerous Wildlife in California and Nevada won the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Bronze “Nature” Award in 2002, and the Natchez Trace volume was a 2006 finalist for a Benjamin Franklin Award sponsored by PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association. In 2004 I choreographed my first dance, “Atma Jyoti,” for the University School of Nashville. Simultaneously, research sponsored primarily by the Colonial Dames resulted in a 2005 “tnportraits.org” website that now documents over 1,500 portraits in Tennessee. In that year a partnership with internationally known mosaic artist Sherri Warner Hunter and local elementary school students produced a gift to Fairview, Tennessee of its first three public sculptures. Collaborating with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, an encompassing history of country music, Will the Circle Be Unbroken: The Definitive Illustrated History of Country Music, featuring my picture research was published by Dorling Kindersley UK in the fall of 2006.
2010-
I wrote my first plays, one of which was selected for Nashville's Ten-Minute Playhouse. After staging a reading of my full-length script Diamonds in the Dark, a comedy-tragedy about dying, I continue to revise it and seek workshop opportunities. I began producing smaller-scale exhibits for local government institutions such as The City of Forest Hills and Nashville Public Library. A new city guide series about wildlife launched with Wild Cincinnati and Wild Chicago, both published by Menasha Ridge Press of Birmingham, Alabama. A new venture emerges in assisting people with crafting and preserving their ethical wills, personal photographs, and stories. This has lead to designing and producing books. I continue to write, teach, research, speak, and create. Oh, yes, and think.