"For me, life is art, art is life, I just don't feel any distinction between. I'll be busy at it, in whatever form takes my fancy the rest of my life."
I was born in East LA, in 1944, ahead of the baby boom of the USA. I drew and colored on everything I could get my hands on. I was curious about everything. Still am.
I read voraciously. Still do. I was influenced by my times. I graduated early and was in college at sixteen. I was a beatnik. I absorbed the poetry of Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams, the social philosophies of Sartre, and Marx, the ecological concerns of Rachel Carlson. I spent my time in coffee houses. I drew pictures on napkins, and people hung them on the walls. I learned to play the guitar, and played folk music.
I went to San Francisco in time to catch the last days of the Haight-Ashbury scene. I got a job doing make-up for the San Francisco Opera Company. I painted faces on faces and got to watch performances from backstage.
I wanted to see Alaska, and got as far as Juneau. I thought I would get a summer job there in a cannery but the government had just put a limit on the catch because of the discovery of mercury in the fish. A carnival came to town and I asked if I could draw portraits. I made enough money there to get back to California.
I settled there and married, had kids, and then moved to Washington. I spent years on a large piece of land covered in deep forest, raising kids, gardening, riding horses, baking bread, picking blackberries, and painting. I learned to cook vegetarian and to use an airbrush. I started going to science-fiction conventions and selling my work at at the auctions.
I volunteered some time at a small new alternative high school in my town, and was asked to join the staff as an aide, to create an art department. I spent eighteen years there, and was eventually granted an "Einstein" certificate based on my artwork, to be a full teacher. I taught art and media, and got interested in the artistic possibilities of computers. My first computer work was done on an Amiga. I've been flirting with the computer as incredibly versatile paintbrush ever since.
While I was there I worked with another teacher who had a burning desire to connect students around the world. We collaborated took students to Russia just after the iron curtain came down. I got to take my students to the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg to touch art treasures of the world with our eyes. That exchange took place for several years and is chronicled in the book "Guerrilla Visions" By Phil Davis. Then we added Mexico, and took students to Calpalalpan, a town near Mexico City, and I got to introduce my beloved punky, tattooed, leather-jacketed kids to Teotihuacan. We climbed the Temple of the Sun, and participated in the temascal (Aztec sweat lodge) and toured the beautiful museums of Mexico City.
Media: Various
Contact: runninghorsegallery (@ ) yahoo.com
