A native of Utah, Ron was born in St. George. He spent his early formative years on the family’s ranch north of St. George, in the Pine Valley Mountains. Ron credits those early years as being critical to his lifelong love of nature which led him into landscape painting. He started painting in oils during his junior high years, pursuing art throughout his years of secondary education, and earning a B.A. degree in Fine Art at Southern Utah University where he graduated in 1975. As an artist I am defined by those influences of nature and humanity that I have encountered along the path of life. What I paint, how I interpret my subject through concept, design, color, and application of paint, and how I feel about art, are reflections of my continuing journey as an artist. I am in a constant state of flux, growing and evolving as this journey leads me to new places of inspiration in my creative imagination and in the way it is influenced by what I see in the world around me, in the works of other artists, and as I grow spiritually.
"I feel that in order to create a work of art that is real, honest, and enduring I must make a subject my own, not by copying whatever it may be, but through interpretation. Emerson says of the artist, “The details, the prose of nature he should omit, and give us only the spirit and splendor and he will come to value the expression of nature, and not nature itself.” A painting should bear witness to the artist’s imagination, personality, and character. A painting needs to have enough emotional impact to make a connection with the viewer, while having an intellectual construct which is hidden beneath the aesthetic surface.
In the end I can only hope that I will have left the world a better place for having had the privilege of being an artist, and that those works of art will be a record of my life’s experiences with all of the struggles and triumphs that I have experienced as an artist on this journey. "