James Koskinas was born in Terre Haute, Indiana and raised in Northern California.  Always creative, he studied art at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California as a high school student during the summers.

 

Koskinas served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam war, after which he wandered through the Caribbean, Asia, Australia, Europe, North Africa and India.  Upon returning home he studied art and creative writing.  Also an actor, he participated in the Stanislavski Theatre of the West in San Francisco.  For many years, he worked in the Bay Area as a contractor. More recently, in addition to painting and sculpting, he wrote and performed a one-person monologue drawing on his Vietnam experiences, Even if the Mountains Burn and later created an award winning film based on this play, The Twilight Angel.

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James relocated to Santa Fe, NM in 2002 to pursue painting full time with his now wife, Julie Schumer, also a painter. In the years since, his work has been widely exhibited in galleries both in Santa Fe and across the United States and is the State of New Mexico’s public collection.