Tom was born in Iron Mountain, Michigan and raised in the north woods of upper Michigan and now resides in the western part Racine County, Wisconsin with his loving wife Mariann.

As an artist, he is self taught having realized that he had an artistic gift early in life. When he was a boy he says, “I'd go sit in a parking lot and draw cars in my notebook with colored pencils.” His deep love and respect for the Native American Culture is beautifully reflected in his artwork. Currently, his pastel paintings hang in collections throughout the country having been sold in galleries in Colorado, Texas, and Virginia; as well as, Madison, Spring Green, and Racine in Wisconsin. He has also been featured in shows at the Milwaukee Art Center and University of Wisconsin Parkside.

The artist himself has said that “working together with the native people of this land would have been a very good thing. We could have learned from them, just as they could have learned from us. Nature is all we really have, and the native people realized this.” In his wildlife artwork, wolves have often taken center stage and he credits the wolves at the Timberland Preservation Society south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin as his inspiration.

Tom has worked for “Studios of Potente” for about 20 years where he constructs and designs both furnishings and sculpture for churches throughout the country. In addition, he has done restorations of many old and very, deteriorated works of art. One was mural at the Kemper Center and the County Board Chambers in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

In addition to his pastel artwork, Tom carves wood sculptures depicting Native Americans in such woods as Mahogany and Walnut. “The Mountain Man” is a 21 foot tall statue carved from an oak tree that had been struck by lightening in Yellow Spring, West Virginia. It was commissioned and completed in the summer of 2003. “It was a very interesting experience,” says Tom, “and the client came to be a very close friend of mine.”