Hello! Like most people, I began to draw and paint in kindergarten. Unlike most, I was painting fairly realistically in oils and drawing in pastels by the time I was seven. By the time I was an adolescent, I could paint or draw almost anything I set my mind to, and my life’s goal was to strive to be the world’s next great celebrity artist . . . the next Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, or some other such nonsense (cue the laugh track). After a decade of college Art courses, and four more decades of professional toil since . . . the achievement of that goal never materialized. I might be tempted to ask myself “What went wrong with my brilliant plan?” if it weren’t for the fact that now, at an age of nearly 70, I find myself reasonably well-blessed, happy, and have the good sense not to ask such useless questions any longer. Somewhere along the way I bid adieu, and made my peace with my youthful ambitions, expectations, and sense of entitlement. I’ve since learned to pursue all of my creative impulses from an unhurried place of balance (more or less). I get passionate about the execution of it, in order to get the intended vision of it correct. But I no longer worry very much about what people think of it when it’s done, or whether anyone will pay me, or think better of me for it. I have a small network of creative friends whose opinions matter greatly to me and with whom I share my activities. As I’ve been known to say many times, my good friend, the composer/trumpet player, Jeff Kaiser, once told me of a definition of all “Art” as being little more than children playing on a river’s mudbank, calling out to one another to show off their mud pie creations. More than anything else, that attitude of “play” very much permeates my approach to all creativity — and especially to my paintings these days. I simply offer it as another way of explanation for those who care to “tune in.” Thanks for visiting.