Some years back I was in a pizza parlor in Chicago, and the walls were papered with old newspapers. Right before my eyes was the headline, “Find what you love, and then do it on evenings and weekends for the rest of your life.” It was a revelation into my own life as a painter of pictures, as that is what I had been doing for over three decades. And it was not always easy after a hard day’s work at any of my “regular” jobs over the years. There was always positive feedback along the way, but more importantly, there was never any doubt in my mind that I was doing something that, for whatever reason, was right for me to do. I tend to believe it to be a spirit. At Kearney State College (now U.N.K.) in the mid 70’s, I crammed about three years of art courses into the year and a half that I was enrolled. I remember that a few painting professors were adverse to pictures they called “commercial looking”. But I’ve done a little freelance commercial illustration over the years. I have often wondered what selling any piece of artwork is if not commercial. I like to think of myself as an illustrator. For the most part, I try to illustrate the beauty of the natural world around us with an emphasis on craftsmanship.