One night about 30 years ago I brought some tubes of Liquitex acrylics that I had found in a closet to a life-drawing class at a community college and started to teach myself to paint. This medium seemed natural for me because I had always used a lot of color in polyester-and-wood sculpture. I gleaned local libraries for books on the Fauves and German Expressionists (my heroes at the time), discovered better paint, the right brushes, and got airborne.

Working without preconceptions, preliminary sketches, or photographs is what I enjoy most. My paintings get reworked a lot and I am constantly drawing with the brush.

Others have tagged me as an expressionist, a colorist, a visual narrator, and a surrealist, labels that I hope will not block the direct experience of my paintings.

Near the top of the flux of artists that I admire are Paul Cezanne, Francisco Goya, Max Beckman, Phillip Guston, Richard Diebenkorn, and lately, Eric Fischl, and cartoonist George (“Krazy Kat”) Herriman for his nocturnal atmospheres.