| Greg has many years experience in varied fields of art, advertising, painting, computer graphics, silkscreen, sculpture, cartooning and drafting... the following list is a compilation of some of his work history. Graduated Salina South High School (Salina Kansas) in 1980, Greg excelled at his favorite subjects including Art, Drafting & Art Appreciation. He attended Salina Area Vo-Tech School during his junior and senior years of high school, trying out the Technical Drafting and Commercial Art courses. After high school graduation, Greg attended another year of Commercial Art. Greg's summers during high school were filled with projects involving fellow classmates and peers in a program set up through the Salina Recreation Commision and supervised by his mentor (and favorite, most influential teacher) Bill Hottman. The program was called "Mural Makers", and would essentially contribute paintings to walls throughout Salina. A few of Greg's original designs still exist around the area. Greg also worked side jobs during these years, designing cartoon advertisments for local businesses, drew a few strips submitted to magazines like HEAVY METAL and MAD MAGAZINE. Greg recieved a copyright on characters he developed called "DooWops", a fun-loving but trouble-making group of aliens trying to fit in on planet Earth. The characters were never pursued after the copyright was recieved. After high school Greg moved to Wilson Kansas and went to work for Eschbaugh Advertising, where he learned about silk-screen processing, photographic techniques, and decal production. Greg designed stickers for such companies as Coleman, Snapper, Fox, and coal mining companies across the nation. During this period Greg still continued to paint murals for people, hand etched glass, and did drawings, paintings and portraits for extra money. Greg and his family moved to Great Bend and Hoisington Kansas during the following years where he worked at a Telephone Cable Manufacturing Plant for five years. The 12 hour shifts were long, but the money was good. In his spare time he attended night courses at Barton County Community College taking such subjects as Modern Sculpture and Visual Arts. Greg also started drawing pencil portraits for local families. In 1990 Greg was hired at Bell Memorials in Beloit Kansas as the sole artist and computer-aided drafting technician. During the next ten years he was responsible for running the entire design department, training new artists as needed, drawing black & white artwork and scanning them into the graphics computer for use on monuments. The business expanded and he was in charge of 2 other design artists and 2 other design stations - designing , cutting and applying vinyl and painted graphics on semi-trucks, police cars, fire trucks, race cars, signs, and a line of custom sandblasted drinkware. During these years Greg was introduced to what would soon become his passion, hand-engraving on granite. He etched on over 160 monuments for placement throughout Kansas and Nebraska during the 90's. All these etchings were done in his "spare-time" as he was working 8-10 hours a day at Bell Memorials as Art Director. On January 1, 2001 Greg started to work exclusively for himself, choosing to move to Ellis Kansas and work under the roof of Kansas Granite Industries. In the year of 2001 Greg has already produced almost half the amount of etchings it took ten years to do previously, Greg has also expanded his line to include smaller "gift" style granite chunks, and engraves on auto glass, hitting the carshows in the summer demonstrating his skill and etching on customers' hot-rod windows. KGI is a large wholesale granite manufacturer and distributes monuments, slabs and tiles to over 25 states nationwide. Jim & Brian Wolf (owners) allow Greg to do all the hand engraving on their customers stones, and also allow him the freedom to work for anyone else interested. Greg no longer has time to experiment with pencil sketching, sculpture, painting... and frankly doesn't care. He's found his 'niche, and he's happy to be there! |
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