Heritage
Jim grew up in Kingman, AZ in a western family of Native American and Mexican decent. The oral history, legends, and folklore of his people inspire much of his artwork to this day. The awareness of his family history, and being part of that history as it carries into the future makes it contemporary. He transforms the spoken words into a visual experience, and he is the storyteller sharing a part of himself for the world to see. Jim gets an idea, and he paints it, paraphrasing it into an image, usually starting with a figure as the central character. These characters are formed quickly in the romantic "Bambi" style cowboys and Indians of the Arizona Highways illustrators that influenced him at an early age. Once Jim starts painting he rarely stops, he lets his imagination take over as he tells the story around the characters in vignettes, adding details and allegory that create the magical world inside one of his canvases. He loves to tell stories, not necessarily from memory but from questions about what might have happened to this person or in this place. To Jim, the accuracy is not most important, the magic is in the making and searching for messages in the story, creating new thoughts and expressions, this is his personal contact with the history of his people.
