Excerpt from a recent interview:

Q: How long have you been an artist?

I started painting about 45 years ago in grade school and never really looked back. I’ve also played the drums and guitar off and on over the years as well as photography and graphic design. My parents would probably argue that I was an artist or creative from the minute I was born.

Q: Tell us about your first attempts to be creative.

My first painting was an anniversary gift for my parents. I didn’t have any money at the time but I wanted to express how grateful I was for them and their marriage. My appreciation was beyond words, really. Words just seemed so weak.

I grabbed a scrap piece of wood out of the garage and found some random paint and markers and went to town while they were out at an anniversary dinner. It was done by the time they got home, so I could surprise them.

It’s a painting of my dad handing my mom a rose and their wedding rings are both visible. I put the kitchen table in the background because to me (along with their rings) it was a symbol of stability as it’s where we sat down for family meals and our most essential needs were met there. It still hangs in their house today.

That’s when I first learned that I could speak in a more powerful and meaningful way with images instead of words.

Q: Are there any other paintings that you learned from or that made a significant impact on you?

My second painting was a giant mural of Jimi Hendrix. My dad got me into music at a really young age. He gave me his old stereo and some classic rock tapes he had laying around. I’d spend hours lying on my bed listening to music.

One night I threw some trash bags on the carpet in my bedroom and grabbed some paint and eight hours later… a giant Hendrix mural emerged.

I thought my parents were going to be mad that I painted on my walls but they loved it and embraced my insanity. If it wasn’t for their support I wouldn’t be an artist.

The mural itself was surprisingly good despite my lack of any real training at the time and that’s when I realized that not only could I speak more powerfully with images but I also had the innate ability to control their outcome. If I wanted something to look like Hendrix… it’d look like Hendrix. I saw that I had the ability to forge things into existence with paint and a brush.

Standing there in my bedroom at such a young age looking at an eight–foot–tall painting of Hendrix’s bust that I had just created… I also learned that large art has a special superpower.

A larger–than–life painting transcends reality in many ways. They can really suck you into them when you stand in front of them. Time seems to stop. Where do you end and where does the painting begin?

Those barriers suddenly break down and you’re in another world. Something blurs for me when I’m standing in front of a really large painting. Suddenly you are the art and the art is you. You lose yourself and find something else. You become the painting. You’re in it yet at the same time you can see it.

Some magic certainly happens there because of the sheer power large paintings possess. Over the years that’s been a huge influence and theme… I love working large enough to where you go from just simply looking at a painting as a decoration to it grabbing you by the shoulders and pulling you into it. The painting is forcing you in and making you part of its world. There’s something really moving about it.

I like paintings that stir your soul in that way. I draw a parallel between it and music. Music is fine to listen to… but really great music picks you up and it moves you thru time and space. You feel it in a more intense way. It’s like you’re suddenly riding a wave of energy thru the cosmos. You’re being transported yet at the same time you know you’re just lying on your bed listening to music.

Q: Besides painting large… what are the other central themes in your work?

I paint what I love and I try to capture a sense of innocence, happiness, love, and joy in everything I do. I feel like there can never be enough of those things in life and if I have the ability to pour more love, happiness and innocence into the world… why wouldn’t I do that?

Q: How many hours a day do you create?

My painting usually comes in intense waves. I’ll go thru a period of where I’m not creating much on a daily basis and then I’ll go thru a week or so where I’m working 16-18 hours a day, and I create a tremendous amount of art in that time frame.

Not sure why I like the extremes but there’s something about taking the time to recharge/play/rest/think and using that to get inspired and then running at 100 miles an hour when you’re in that zone.

I’m heavily influenced by music though. I won’t paint without great music. Music is where I get all my energy from. So if I’m not in the zone but need to be… I’m able to force myself into it with the right music.

Acrylics are my thing.

My process involves layering different colors on top of one another and I usually work straight out of a bottle vs using a brush and palette… spilling colors on top of one another. So I have a lot of drying time involved in my process because one layer has to be dry before the next color can go in. Painting with acrylics is essential because I need the fast drying times.

I love any type of paints really but there’s something about the boldness of acrylics. I use really well–made paints with a really high percentage of pigment in the binding and they don’t use water, fillers, etc. That’s one of my many secrets for the color intensities I’m able to achieve.

What’s more important to me than the medium though is the stylization.

Early on I realized I could do photorealism but in my eyes there was something special about a painting. It’s a painting… so I fell in love with the idea that a painting should tell you that it’s a painting.

I began to move away from natural colors in favor of bolder primary colors and combined it with adding visual cues.

I loved seeing bold brush strokes and areas in paintings that were looser and more gestural contrasted with other areas that were tighter and more controlled.

Eventually I had to have more and more of that gestural energy and I started to loosen up and eventually took it to the extreme where every square inch has to have that raw and uncontrolled energy.

How loose could I get yet still describe what I was painting? 

Now my entire painting must scream that it’s a painting vs. having a few spots here and there. It’s become an obsession but I feel like the end result is worth it. I just can’t really get the energy and movement when I’m working tighter.

It’s like suddenly riding Space Mountain with the lights on. You’ve ridden it a million times and you don’t see much… but when you ride it with the lights on you see the structure whizzing by and you constantly feel like your head is about to be torn off. It’s far more exhilarating when you see the details. You get a sense of how fast you’re moving. You see how surprisingly close your head is to the track overhead. You just get a new sense of movement thru space since you’re able to see where you are and how you fit in.

I feel like paintings kind of work like that. When everything is tight and controlled and realistic everything is smooth and blended. Your eye is told what is there. It doesn’t have to work much. The painting begins to look like a photo.

Photos can obviously convey motion too… but when you see big bold brush strokes that aren’t connected or in my case paint that’s hurled thru space and thrown onto canvas… you see the structure but things are deconstructed a bit and your eye begins to move to make the connections. It just adds the energy that I feel like is impossible to capture if I’m working tight. 

Q: How do you recharge when your creativity hits the wall?

There’s an art to hitting the wall. For me, painting is all about energy. I’ve learned to recognize that energy. When it’s good energy, when it’s ending, and when it’s bad energy. I’m smart enough now to know that good things happen with good energy and that bad things happen with bad energy.

So knowing when to quit is important. I guess I’ve failed enough times when I hit the wall but kept trying to work. That’s when I make all my mistakes and do my worst work.

Once I’m not feeling it… I quit and clean up. Go do something else for a spell. Think about other things. Looking at art and listening to music always redirects me back into the zone.