Born at Fort Sill, Oklahoma in the Fall of 1945. An army brat with all the attendant advantages and disadvantages of life in a military family in which young men were expected to become the officers of the next generation. Moved to California in the mid-sixties to attend Episcopal seminary.

While studying for the ministry, spent the summers working as a skipper delivering sail boats to several Pacific islands and Hong Kong.

After receiving a doctorate in Theology and becoming an ordained minister, ran a small parish church until the early 70's at which time left the ministry and returned to school to study architecture. The years that followed found several paths that included apprenticeships under Paolo Soleri, Charles Eames and a stay in Japan under the stern eye of Hiroshi Hasinawa, studying temple architecture, with side interests including kendo, mountaineering, and ballooning.  After living and teaching art in the southwest (Arizona and New Mexico), moved to the east coast (New York City and Cape Cod), and finally settled in Maine (Belfast), where he now works in a studio barn built in 1888 with a quiet view of Penobscot Bay. He spends his time painting (landscapes, portraits and icons), and building large and small scale sculpture for municipal, corporate and private commissions.

"In my work I would like to convey the sense of the voyage of ideals, the arrival of a dreamworld. To hover between the real and the spiritual world. To call up ‘stories’ from our collective past, still points around which our private memories revolve.”--James Strickland