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I was born June 26th, 1968 in the town of Paris, Arkasas which is nestled in the foot hills and valleys directly below Magazine Mountain which is the highest mountain peak in Arkansas.  Because I was raised in the moutains, I have a full appreciation of the rich history, culture, life, loves and arts long held through tradition in the many people from the mountains including incredible art not only in drawings, paintings and sculpture, but in quilting, music from hand crafted instruments and folk medicine.  Blood family ties are certainly strong in the mountains as they are (hopefully) everywhere in the world, but when you live in a true "mountain community", everyone is your family and that is something which is never questioned by the people who come from this way of life. 

After graduating High School, I enrolled and attended The University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Arkansas.  While there, I also attended other classes at many other schools to transfer my credit hours back to U of O and this gave me an even further chance to explore different ideology and ways of doing things as well as many additional opportunities to learn how to think using many different approaches.  I was given the chance to learn so many other facts about so many different varying groups of people.  A particular attraction of the then College of the Ozarks (which became The University of the Ozarks the same year I enrolled) was the fact of the school population being rather small, the campus itself was very self contained and rested in what was still a very small city in Arkansas, but the diversity of the student population was incredibly vast.  We were fortunate to have a population in the school of young adults not only from all walks of life found throughout the United States, but from many countries and cultures throughout the entire world.  Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, French, English, Argentinian.  Students from Belize, Columbia, Nigeria...small groups of students who were brought together within an even smaller community with everyone there to expand our minds in an abundance of different fields of study.  If you would like to learn more about the University of the Ozarks, click here.

After graduation, marrying and adopting my new wife's two beautiful children, I was then given the chance to travel extensively all through the United States as part of the requirements of the different positions I have held in different corporations.  I can say with certainty there aren't many airports in this country in which I have not spent a good deal of time.  I've seen many cities and have had the opportunity to experience diverse cultures (if anyone ever says we're one country and one culture--you're speaking to a person who has never stepped foot outside of their own back yard.  Every city, every area has its own unique culture and even our largest cities have undefined borders within their streets where people of like backgrounds still tend to remain together) but in all the many joys and wonders of traveling, the mountains of home still call softly in the night.

This particular picture was taken in the late afternoon of a lazy summer just as storm clouds were beginning to approach over the mountains toward Paris.  In moments like this when you're actually lucky enough to have your camera with you to catch the breathtaking scene unfolding in the horizon before you, you realize how fortunate you are to have the photograph so you can hold on to that one moment and fully remember that feeling of when you first actually saw it--then you truly know and feel that this is home and will always be home.  Even if industry, civilization, road crews and street sweepers some day roll across this very landscape, these images in my memory will always continue and through many photographs I have made over the years.

Paris Arkansas is a city rich in history and intrigue.  Recently the town began undergoing massive rennovations to restore the buildings around the town square to their original architecture and style in an effort to highlight the appeal of the newest tourist attraction for the area--The Mount Magazine Lodge which now sits at the top of the majestic mountain.  Complete with a fully serviced hotel and cabin lodgings, the hotel is already mostly booked up for a pretty extensive time in the future.  So if you want reservations there, the sooner you call the sooner you can actually get lodgings (although it most likely will not be for several months as they are constantly booked).  There are also artisans and craftsman, as well as museums, antique stores, gift stores and excellent resteraunts throughout the area making this a perfect place to vacation and get away from the ravages of larger city living.  Away from the town and the lodge of Mount Magazine itself, the people who live in the more rural areas have no real interest in allowing these regions to become any more "modern" than they already are.  The ever present beauty of the hills, mountains and nature itself are the very core reasons why their families have remained on the same land for so many generations and they are completed devoted to keeping it just this way.  It is within those very areas I grew up and returned to for a time in my adult life.  Even today, although I don't live in the Paris vicinity, it is still the mountains and the region itself which holds me close.  Having moved to the Northwest Arkansas area I truly feel as though I am still home.

Immediately upon graduating from the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Arkansas, I married and adopted Joseph and Laurie, my wife's children from a previous marriage.  Having just graduated from college herself the same year, she began teaching at a small private school in Paris and we purchased a home and rennovated it to raise the children in.  Both of the kids were very active in the public school setting and excelled in everything they undertook.  The different positions I took with corporations based in Fort Smith, Arkansas, required me to travel a lot of the time so unfortunately I was not always able to be there for all of the many different school functions and other activities the kids were involved in.  But they always made sure to tell me all the details of their experiences with the phone conversations I had with them from whatever hotel I may have been in at that particular time or during the times we spent together when I returned home and before I had to leave again.  The kids and I worked very closely with each other in continuing the rennovations of our home and they worked with me through every step of the way of our planning and building the landscaping we soon surrounded our home with to make our yard as inviting and beautiful a place as it could become.  Both Joseph and Laurie were gifted children and a true delight to be with on any occasion.  When their mother and I divorced, Laurie remained with their mother and moved back again to Clarksville.  Joseph remained with me and then later when I moved to Chicago, he remained with my own parents because it was toward the end of his senior year of high school and moving him away from his friends he had grown up with would have been difficult for him, at best. Luckily he was able to remain with my parents until he finished his high school journey and moved toward the preparations of beginning finding his own pathways for his life.

Laurie finished her high school diploma at the Clarksville High School and soon after married a man she met at the chuch she was attending just after he finished his own college degree.  Today they still live in the Clarksville area and are working to build their lives together.  Joseph is currently with the military services and is stationed in Germany.  It is truly a great sorrow to me and the rest of my family that the children are no longer close with me or any of the family any longer, but I pray continuously that someday, they may overcome their own prejudices and see beyond the many other false things they have been convinced of and we can be reunited once again.  Until then, they are never away from my thoughts and hopes.

My parents, Robert and Bertha Sutliff, have been married for forty two years and have always lived in the Paris area--specifically in the "Sand Ridge" community on the same farm where my mother was raised as a child herself and then where I, too, was raised through my own childhood.  The large amount of acerage making up the farm is richly blended in terrain and includes grasslands large enough to maintain large herds of cattle (and now two donkeys) and in the spring through early summer, the grass grows high enough so when the wind blows, the land looks like a green sea filled with rolling waves.  My grandparents still live on the farm, as does my brother and his family, as well as one of my mother's sisters with her family and one of my mom's brothers along with his own family.  This means the entire property has become a family community all of its own, but the houses are still spread far enough from each other there is no risk of losing privacy at all.  There are also extensive forrests as you move up the slopes of Sand Ridge itself where wildlife flourishes.  Coyotes, opossum, racoon, birds of countless species, squirrel, wild turkey, deer, even occasional bear and mountain lions make these areas their home as well and only on rare occasions does the boundaries of individual homes cross.  My father is planning his retirement within the next two years and has every intention to devote his full time efforts back into the farm itself where he will raise cattle to generate income to suppliment retirement--and this will also give him one of the greatest treats of his life and is something he absolutely loves to do.  As long as he is outside and not felt like he is being "cooped up" in the house, he is a truly happy man.  He has been working for the past few years now on getting everything ready so he can pursue his retirement dream and works with my mother's own brother who has the same goal for the farm.  They've already purchased tractors and most all of the equipment that will be necessary to make their jobs easier over the coming years and I know how strongly they look forward to the day when they can do this full time and not be bothered with the necessary "full time jobs" where working for others only gives you an income but no satisfaction of personal self worth.  I enjoy watching them move toward this transition and a I salute and support them with every step they take toward the day when this is finally official for them.