I live in Beautiful Portland Oregon with my wife Donna Kossy, the woman who literally wrote the book on Kooks. I own the World's Worst Comic Book Collection, and have been creator and proprietor of the World's Worst Comic Book Museum (currently offline) and the only original online Review of Maria Cookies, viewable on this website.

I received the usual artistic training available to schoolchildren of the day. I specifically recall my discovery that I could draw two sides of an object, i.e. the front and the side of an automobile, at the same time. I also recall my teacher's failure to note the importance of my discovery. I continued to teach myself in that manner. I stopped attending my final (freshman college) art class when the instructor became offended at my telling him that I was taking the class for MY benefit, not HIS. I have found formal education extremely useful for attaining specific technical skills. Unfortunately the word "art" has so much emotional baggage attached to it that simply learning how to draw was made deliberately difficult by people whose "famous artist" dreams never came true, so I chose to attend a technical school in which considerations of creativity and style, and what some dead guy did in Paris in the 1920s, would play no part. I attained Associate Certification as a machine draftsman at the very end of the era in which all such work was done by hand with pencil and pen on paper, and that extreme precision of style has since been invaluable, but sometimes difficult for me to overcome.

My paintings in the 21st century are an effort to apply pure craftsmanship with as little conscious creative thought as possible. I sometimes compete with myself to try to find the least interesting image. I enjoy painting things which any reasonable person would ignore, if not despise, if seen in reality. Something you would hate to see out your front window is completely different when it's a painting. I paint things that are broken-down, used-up, and worn-out, things that have absorbed years and years of human energy and at last have become wrecks, nuisances and liabilities requiring still more effort to finally dispose of. I also like store displays and huge piles of products and objects, multiple items and automobile faces.

My recent drawings have been founded on a desire to create limits in form and subject matter. I studied medieval illustration and compiled notes of sources and forms before beginning my Fairy Tale and News Story series. I have since made an effort to move away from strict precision through sketchbook exercises combining speed of execution and absurdity of conception with female nudity.