I live and work in a great little community called Yankeetown along the banks of the Withlacoochie river just North of Crystal River,  Florida.

How did I get to be this way?

I was born in Anchorage, Alaska, where I lived for several years.  Back then the snowbanks were taller than me.  But I met up with a wild moose face to face, flew in to Upper Russian River in a seaplane and formed a definite preference for not living in large cities.

I grew up in a town on the outskirts of Kansas City, Missouri and went to a typical midwest small town high school at a time when the mere possession of cigarettes was a major disciplinary event.

Heroes

My first inspirations in art were the fantastic illustrations of Maxfield Parrish & Norman Rockwell,  the cartooning of underground artist Robert Crumb (check out his album cover art for Big Brother and the Holding Company's CHEAP THRILLS ).   The new poster art coming out of California - Peter Max - a revival of Art Nouveau and Toulous Lautrec - and the sudden appearance of new media and materials -- felt tipped pens. New modeling compounds. Rub-on lettering films.  Metallic mylar films.  Colored Illustrators board. Foils. DayGlo paint ! 

So I tried my hand at day glow posters, learned Macramé, wood and linoleum block printing.

 The new counter-culture spawned an organic look in college student self-publishing --  Pen and Ink hand lettering and printing on off-white paper stocks.  The Whole Earth Catalogue and The Mother Earth News.

I graduated from High School at the end of my Freshman year and spent what would have been my Senior year studying electonics in Mississippi.  I worked in radio electronics with a plan to go into radio broadcasting and discovered I really had more love for the visual arts.

I'd always talked with a pencil or pen in my hand, finding it easier to put forth an idea as a picture than with words alone.

Portugal

 I went to Portugal during this time where I painted and got run over by a bull.  Yeah, really.
That's me there in the center,
about 1 minute before the bull chased me headlong down the sand and ran over me. Oddly, he didn't get me with a horn or even step on me.

Then back home to the U.S.  -- Southern California, Las Vegas and Northern California.
I suddenly -- like overnight -- got the opportunity to go to Hawaii for "a few weeks" and took it.

Hawaii

I suddenly -- like overnight -- got the opportunity to go to Hawaii to work  "for a couple of weeks" and found myself there the following day.

That couple of weeks became a couple of years and I met an incredible girl, hung out with her for several months and married her.   We moved back to the mainland and sunny (smoggy) Los Angeles.  

Southern England

I spent several months living and studying in Southern England before returning to live in Florida.