Curriculum Vitae

I was born in the Mississippi Delta in 1958, grew up along the Blues Highway, and became Valedictorian of Rolling Fork High School in 1976. I specialized in sculpture at Mississippi College under dual art and academic scholarships, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 1980. My real training, however, began when I became an apprentice at the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture in New Jersey. There I studied under the renowned sculptor Andrzej Pitynski, learning each of the skills required to take a sculpture from maquette to finished bronze monument. My aptitude for sculpting the portrait, capturing likeness and character, and encompassing the emotions and memories of historical events exemplify my body of work.

For 35 years I have worked full-time as a professional sculptor. In 1992 the National Sculpture Society presented me with the Young Sculptors Award. In 1997 I was elected as a Professional Member of the NSS. In 2012 I became an elected member of the Portrait Sculptors Society of the Americas.

During the course of my career I have created 53 public art works in 20 states and Canada.
The sculptures which comprise my portfolio range in scale from life-size to monumental. Many are portrait bronzes: from Civil Rights figures Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks and Sojourner Truth, to jazz legend John Coltrane, Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Lakota Sioux Chief Frank Fools Crow and others.

I work exclusively by commission creating public monuments and memorials to historical figures and events. Although I now live on the west coast, I continue to create works each year for the east coast. I am well-versed in choreographing the movement and installation of monumental bronzes cross-country. Without exception my commissions have been delivered on time, within budget, and to my clients’ and the public’s complete satisfaction.

Even after conducting open competitions for each commission, former clients return to me for the assured quality of my work and my ability to work efficiently and harmoniously with all principals involved. For example, over the span of twenty years I created the sculptures for the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean War Memorial and World War II Memorial after three separate open competitions. Following the success of the John Coltrane Monument in High Point, North Carolina, I was chosen to create the February 11 Monument there, which commemorates the 1960 lunch counter sit-in by the city’s African American high school students.

The success of my Justice William Brennan statue in 2010 led to Essex County, New Jersey commissioning me to create nine more bronze portrait figures over the next eight years, including Congressman Donald Payne, Rosa Parks, Governor Brendan Byrne, tennis champion Althea Gibson, and MLB Hall of Famer Monte Irvin.

In 2015 I was recruited to a team of ten of the nation’s top sculptors to design the greatest sculptural realization of the Stations of the Cross ever created. Consisting of over 70 bronze figures, each 7’ tall, and taking three years to complete, the monumental stations are placed along a path bordering the Platte River in Nebraska at Cloisters on the Platte, the 900 acre Ignatian retreat created by TDAmeritrade founder Joe Ricketts.

In 2017 I unveiled a bronze of Piedmont Blues guitarist Etta Baker in Morganton, North Carolina, and completed an 18’ figure of Kenny Sailors, who invented the jump shot in basketball, for the University of Wyoming. In 2018 the Battle of Pines Bridge Monument in Yorktown, New York ( three 8’ figures), which honors the all-black 1st Rhode Island Regiment of the American Revolution, and a 12’ statue of King Kamehameha III for Honolulu, Hawaii were dedicated.

Completed in 2020, the Stockmen’s Park Monument stands in Livermore, California. This piece commemorates the first Livermore Rodeo, which was organized to raise money for the Red Cross during WW1.

July of 2021 saw the unveiling of the largest bronze statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the world, 14’ tall, at the new Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Justice Building in Newark, New Jersey. Another of my works, a portrait bust of Congressman John Lewis, stands in the building’s lobby.

September 22 in Richmond, Virginia, the Emancipation Proclamation and Freedom Monument was dedicated. A five year project, the central elements of the composition are two 12’ bronze figures and 10 relief portraits.