painting out the bones

i grew up painting and drawing, my mother made sure i had plenty of art books and took me to museums to look at art. in high school i studied watercolors at CCA in oakland, calif. later i had my own construction company, restoring houses, painting on and off. kismet entered, a serious illness drew me back to art, returning to health was a long slow process and art enabled me to be creative. i spent much of my time in museums looking at art unable to do much else, but it was a revelation, for the first time in my life i actually saw with all of my 5 senses and the unseen psychic senses, i experienced art as real, something wonderful was going on there on the canvas. art was there for me when nothing else was and i followed along as best i could. the more i looked the more i saw. i did hundreds of small paintings during my recovery. later when i got well i began to paint in earnest, fairly shocked and how bad of a hand i was at it. these early paintings were graffiti and child like, but they were a good beginning. i was coming to life. i found a teacher, a great sculpture, artist, jeweler, bob winston who became a mentor and friend, a zen master, poking holes in my ego, pushing me past old beliefs and any notions of grander, just paint, its enough. we talked about design, theory, ideas and new ways of looking at the world, but mostly i watched bob work, and work endlessly. well into his 80 s he was still making and enjoying the process of inventing. its a pretty fine tribute to the human spirit and he never turned me down, no matter what odd hour i showed to hang out and visit. when i left for santa fe the last time i saw him he walked me to the door of his studio, go forth and be a great painter and shut the door. some of my main influences are picasso de kooning, gaugin, de buffett and any of the german expressionists, latin painting . but really i like it all, any genre, any era, its all art. bios are just bios, its the work that important, if you like it that's all you need to say. as bob said paint ,its enough . jgk