MP1

BRIEFLY, I began drawing when I was five, REALLY drawing. I was studying Mythology then and Astronomy; at the age of five; and I quickly transitioned from childhood drawing to motivated drawings of my surroundings and mythos. At the age of seven I was suspended from the fourth grade because I drew a very accurate portrait of my English Teacher adding her lovely head and lovely bare breasts to a goat's body. In the eighth grade; at the age of twelve; I won my first Art Show, at the Cuyahoga Valley Art Center and was given a bank account of my own as part of the award presentation. I was soon to accomplish great things as an artist. I just knew it. In the tenth grade, when I was fifteen, my teacher took one of my oil paintings out of the trash where I'd deposited it, and entered it into the National Scholastics Art Awards Competition, without my knowing it. The painting won First Place at the National Competition and was featured on the cover of Scholastic Magazine. I actually tested out of High School in the ninth grade but my mother thought I was too young for college, so I was actually allowed to construct my own curriculum and stay at the local high school until I was seventeen and then graduate. I entered the National Scholastics Art Awards Competition again when I was sixteen and won nearly everything in New York that year, including Best In Show; an acrylic painting purchased from me by Hallmark and placed in their permanent gallery. My portfolio was selected for a full scholarship to the college of my choice. I began classes at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in August 1969, and later attended the fine art department of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM for additional studies relevant to my budding career as an artist. Then I was sidetracked by an opportunity to become a star in the music industry so I sidelined my visual arts for a few decades of fame, fortune and loss in Hollywood, as a recording artist, then a music producer, an independent record label owner-operator and associate. After many years of work and pleasure, mixed precariously on the edge of sanity, I suffered a heart attack and assumed semi-retirement, but now I have re-emerged and am currently working primarily as a storyboard artist and music composer for authors, directors and film companies in California. Illustrating graphic novels is also becoming more in demand lately as my notoriety expands into new circles. I'm certain that this "profile" glimpse sheds light on my character.