Biography

I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, where, along with my public schooling, I attended the Saturday School of the Columbus College of Art and Design. I got a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Dartmouth College and an MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

I’ve always been drawn to art that tells or suggests a story. I wrote and illustrated the children’s book Gowanus Dogs. I’ve done series of paintings based on Greek tragedies.

Civil Rights

Many years ago I read and was deeply affected by Nick Kotz’s book, Judgment Days: Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws that Changed America. That’s where I first learned about the Selma Negro Teachers’ march and the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson. Relying on those narratives, I did paintings of both incidents. Since then I’ve read many more books on the civil rights movement. I also went on a tour of important Southern civil rights sites led by Ray Arsenault, author of the definitive book on the Freedom Rides.and on the civil rights movement.

A while back I took time now to do a series of ten paintings depicting scenes from Romeo and Juliet. The first four of these Romeo and Juliet paintings I’ve completed are as follow:”

“O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright” (Act I, Scene V)

“Come night! come Romeo! come thou day in night!” (Act III, Scene II)

“ . . . I will kiss thy lips;

Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them” (Act V, Scene III)

“O happy dagger!” (Act V, Scene III)

I have studied and traveled in France, and speak French.  I received as a BA in Philosophy from Dartmouth College and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. 

I have shown work at the Viridian Gallery, the Visual Arts Gallery, the Art Directors’ Club, Bob Black-burn’s Printmaking Workshop, and the Embassy of the French Cultural Ministry in New York and at several galleries in New England. 

I have taught art at the Maine College of Art; Round Top Center for the Arts in Damariscotta, Maine; and Maine Coast Artists (now the Center for Maine Contemporary Art) in Rockport.  I also give private art lessons. 

My children’s book Gowanus Dogs received the Marion Vannett Ridgway Memorial Honor Book Award and the National Council for Social Studies – Children’s Book Council Award. 

Since 2007 I have owned the Jonathan Frost Gallery and Frame Shop in Rockland, Maine. Both the frame shop and my studio are in the Lincoln Street Center in Rockland.