Introduction:

     For all of my first 66 years, I was young, and skinny.  I didn't mind a bit.  Now, I'm neither of those.  I notice, but I don't think that I mind the changes.  My interest hasn't ever been focused very much on what I wasn't.  I've never experienced any profound reaction against what I looked like.  I think that I might have enjoyed being better looking, but nothing negative has come my way because of how I looked.  Not that I'm aware of, anyway.  I'm much more interested in how other people look, & I do like to look at them.  Looking at people, places & things is the most persistent impulse that I have, & it's been very useful to me in my endeavors as a Picture Painter. 
     When I began my studies at a small New England Art School, the standard form of instruction was to have the students look at something that was present, that they were expected to accurately represent on first. paper, & later, on canvas.  This was enjoyable especially since I seemed to have had an inherent aptitude for doing what was asked for.  As time went on, I became less interested in drawing what I was looking at, & vaguely attracted to the idea of working as I imagined a writer might work; for instance on a story, or a novel.  The thought that it might be possible to sit down with some very basic materials, & think, or visualize an image into being, the way an author might think a story into becoming a fact began to appeal to me very much, & at a certain point I decided that I would try to do just that; think a picture into being.