My story begins in the fall of 2007, I had just left an incredible job as an elementary art teacher to attend law school with my brother, who is three years younger. Prior to law school I did not pursue my own artistic endeavors, I just had a passion for art. However, right before finals during my first semester, I very much needed an escape from the books. I picked up a paint brush and subsequently painted a series of work that was much stronger than anything before. Since this time I passed the Indiana Bar Exam, practice a little bit of law but have continued to focus on creating full-time.

I grew up on a small family farm in Northern Indiana and helped farm the very land that three generations of Vining’s had farmed before me. During the late 90′s, with the emergence of larger corporate farms, it become more difficult to manage a small farm and like many of other small family farms in America, we stopped farming. This happened in January of my senior year of high school and I can vividly remember the day of our auction. Watching your barns being emptied and everything you have come to know disappear in a day is not something easily forgotten.

Needless to say, this was a difficult time for myself. In the years to come I reflected upon this experience through my artwork and painted a series of old abandoned farm houses trying to express the longing and sadness I have, not only for our lost family farm, but generally, to the end of the era of small family farms dominating the countryside. So, over time these abandoned farm houses in my paintings have evolved and taken new life in the more simplified forms that are common in my work today.