Contact, Biographie, ma peinture

Biographical note

Born in 1953 in Hartford, Connecticut, I spent the greater part of my childhood near Washington D.C. and in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. There were also four years in Spain living in what was then the quaint town of El Escorial, some 60 kilometers from Madrid. I studied in New England and in Fribourg, Switzerland.
When I was 23 years old, I came to know the Benedictine abbey of Solesmes in western France, and after two years of discernment I entered. I have been a monk here since the autumn of 1978.

You can learn about my community and our way of life at www.solesmes.com.

About my painting

A monk leads an intense life of prayer and service, leaving very little time for much of anything else. The paintings on this website are the fruit of rare moments of leisure
Our cloistered and tightly scheduled life makes it virtually impossible to paint in the open air; I work from photographs or with my imagination. Painting allows me to convey something of the awe God's creation inspires in me. In particular, something about mountains lifts my soul and seems to foretell a glorious and beckoning world we cannot yet see.
Not having had much by way of instruction in painting, I chose Paul Cézanne as my guide; his artistic sensitivity touches me deeply. Like so many others, I take this great post-impressionist as a point of departure, hoping to learn in time rather than simply to copy.