…a bit more in detail

Born in 1957, the eldest child in a working-class family of seven. After graduating from high school (Abitur), an “escape from the family” into the German Armed Forces — a two-year misunderstanding that was later partially set right by filing for conscientious objector status as an officer. A first course of studies and early ink drawings, culminating in a Magister Artium in English Linguistics, Sociology, and History.

During a one-year wait for the start of a doctoral fellowship in Linguistics, completed vocational training as a commercial IT specialist — then chose to forgo the fellowship entirely, going on to spend fifteen years as a software developer (with a focus on typographic desktop publishing software) at a Bochum software company, and subsequently as systems administrator and head of pre-press at a Bochum printing house and advertising agency. During this period, a number of smaller exhibitions, including one in Worpswede. Then the decision to enter the teaching profession — a second course of studies, a teaching degree for upper secondary vocational education with a focus on English and social pedagogy, followed by a teacher-training practicum and twenty years of teaching at a vocational college.

Early retirement from teaching due to a serious illness of my wife C. Sadly, only a short time remained for the two of us to share. After her death, and following twenty-five years during which any artistic activity had lain dormant, a resumption and reorientation of my artistic work. What began as a distraction from the constant mental circling around C’s absence — forty-five years of a shared life will always remain present — has since grown, as a digital project, into a central focus of my life.