I grew up in a small town in southeast Missouri, a couple of hours north of Memphis. I now live in Oxford, Mississippi which is about an hour south of Memphis. I came to Oxford to attend the University of Mississippi, and received an MFA in painting in 1976 when I was 25 years old. Since then I have been fortunate to have worked full time at creating art. My paintings have been acquired by major collectors and museums, and have been exhibited in venues globally. My studio is comfortably located a few steps behind my house. In addition to painting, I am very interested in music. The daily activities in the studio include both performing and listening to music, which ranges from Mozart and Rossini, to John Lee Hooker and The Yardbirds, to my own compositions.

I never had the experience of choosing a career path. From the moment I became conscious I knew I was an artist.

Other than my own, I didn’t see actual oil paintings until I was 17 years old. All of the art that I saw until then were reproductions. And this aspect of viewing art may have had bearing on my later thoughts regarding technique and image. I was absolutely obsessed with comic books and book jacket art. I was astounded by the art of Kubert, Cameron, Infantino, Freas, Powers, Wood, Elder, N.C. Wyeth, Rockwell, Emsh and Schoenherr. In my teenage years, at the library, I discovered the art of Dali, Ernst, Dore, Bosch, Vermeer and the Dutch realists, Modiglianni, Bacon, the French Impressionists, the German Expressionists, and the Abstract Expressionists. I was also visually inspired by television programs and movies.

During my revelatory visit to The Brooks Museum of Art, in the summer of 1968, when I saw actual paintings for the first time, I discovered that some paintings contain overt indications of how the image is technically achieved, like obvious brushstrokes and pronounced canvas texture. This technical disclosure varies from artist to artist. For example, a painting by Jackson Pollock shows the technique equally along with the image.

On the other hand, a Vermeer does not. For me, visual evidence of how the painting is done, interferes with my entry — both emotionally and intellectually — into the art. (Please don’t misunderstand, I think that technique alone can be fascinating. I’ve stood with a magnifying glass in front of Vermeer paintings literally for hours studying the technique.)

To help clarify, here are a couple of analogies. If I watch a magician, I don’t want to see how he does the trick, because my sense of wonder will be lessened. If I go to a concert hall to hear a Mozart piano sonata, I don’t want to hear all the notes and chords the musician practiced in preparation for the performance. I want to experience the art as purely as the composer intended.

Music is aural, and painting is visual. I want my painted image to be as flawlessly experienced by the eye as a musical composition is by the ear.

However, I want to emphasize that flawless technique alone will never generate a work of art. A perfectly played sonata, without an engaging melody, will fail. How the artist presents the subject matter, will determine whether or not a painting is art.

Because a painting is, as is all art, a form of entertainment, its performance should appear flawless to the viewer.
I was drawn to Photo-realist painting because of its reverence for the image.

That’s a tough one…. The result of an acute perception, perhaps. I find everything I see to be extraordinary.

Yes, I recognize that my work has a distinctive look.

In creating a work of art, I concentrate on the mental and physical process to achieve my intention. Interestingly, style is not a consideration at all, and yet it inevitably occurs.

I think the more personal and sincere an artist’s efforts, and the more experience (practice) the artist has in making art, the more distinct will be the style.

Thank you, sincerely, for the compliment.

The answer is self-discipline.

Perhaps the most important realization I ever had was that if I were to reach the level of accomplishment I wanted with my work, I would have to live a different kind of life than the normal person. Art would come first, then everything else would revolve around that, as best it could. A strict working regime was necessary, one that consisted of painting persistently, with or without inspiration. I worked this way for years, learning from my mistakes, and always pushing on to the next level.

As a composer of music does not merely reproduce the sounds he hears from the world around him, I do not paint the world as I find it, as a snapshot, so to speak.

The process starts with selecting objects that I find interesting and assembling them into an arrangement. Because I control every element, I infuse the arrangement with metaphorical content, which is of great significance to me and my overall work as an artist.

I work with the arrangement until (and it’s difficult to verbally describe the phenomenon that happens next, but here is an attempt) it begins to radiate a kind of power. At this point I feel there is potential for a painting. I also know that I want such a painting to be more than what I am seeing in my arrangement. I want it to transcend to a more wondrous visual and emotional level.

But — and this is the scary thing about the early stages of the process — I have very little notion of how to get it there.

The surface I paint on is either canvas or paper, prepared with rabbit skin glue sizing, or acrylic gesso. Oil paint is then applied with brushes. The brushes are a variety of sizes, and all are flats, except for #1 and #2 rounds. I sign the painting with the #1. Turpentine is used to thin the paint, as necessary.

After I have arranged the objects, I photograph the setup, shooting approximately 20 photos, each at a different exposure, from completely overexposed, to completely underexposed. A normal exposure, alone, would not allow me to see into the dark and light areas. I use a digital camera and computer, and examine the photos as I’m shooting. Often, I’ll make a change to the setup. I delete the previous photos and re-shoot.

After I have photographed what I feel is a definitive composition, an outline drawing of it is made on the selected surface, using a grid, or a projection. This drawing is not detailed, and serves only as a starting place. Referring to the photos, I begin the painting.As the painting progresses, I change elements, such as colors, location or size of an object, or I may paint over an entire object with a different one.

I continue painting, exploring, always trying to make the painting better. If a photo were made every hour as my painting progresses, and shown consecutively, the painting would appear in constant motion and change. When I feel the painting is complete, I sign it. The original objects and arrangement have gone through a creative process of intellectual, emotional, and physical manipulation, and are no longer what they once were. They are now a painted work of art.My normal schedule is to work everyday, painting approximately 10 hours a day. Depending on size and complexity, a painting takes 1 to 4 months to complete.

Cons first: To know exactly what I wanted to express as an artist, and then the development of the skills necessary to make these things into a physical manifestation — a painting — was quite an arduous enterprise.

Pros: Making art is hard. However, after I’ve fought all the way from the beginning of the process to its completion, and stand and look at the finished painting, there is no better feeling.

There have been many moments I have felt the great feeling of accomplishment — it happens daily in the studio as I work — and I appreciate every one of those moments.

In relation to my career, I’m very proud to have been part of OUTWARD BOUND, the millennium exhibition of 2000, sponsored by Mobil Corporation, that toured major museums throughout the U.S.A. and Asia. The exhibition included work by Warhol, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Goings, Close, and many other notable artists. I’m very proud of my artwork being used on the series of books by Barry Hannah, one of the world’s greatest authors.

And, by the way, ranking right up there with the best of them, is being interviewed by Acuity Designs.