As a boy raised in southern France, I was attracted to, and influenced by, the paintings of Picasso, Chagall, Rouault, Matisse and Modigliani. Later, during fifteen years in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, I was influenced by the magical realists in both my painting and my writing. I came to see myself as a "fabulist." I continue to share the fascination of certain contemporary artists for the archetypal human drama, even as I explore forms and textures that the new opaque, translucent and transparent acrylics make possible. 

My career as an artist has run parallel with a career in writing fiction, as well as being contributing editor and lead essayist on art for THE, Santa Fe's Monthly Magazine of the Arts for seven years. I began as a graphic artist in 1971, doing the cover painting and 17 illustrations for my first novel, and have done the jacket painting for two other books. While I have been immersed in, and have written about, various spiritual traditions, I see my painting less as "spiritual" than as spirited. Living as I do in a little Hispanic village at 8,500 feet in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Taos, New Mexico, I love the way that the sacred can be found in the commonplace, the divine in the ordinary. I regard many of my paintings as functional, in that they are meant to serve as what I call "primers of positive emotions." Though the paintings are meant for private homes, I see my paintings as also inducing warm, happy, and transformative emotions in public places of commerce, pleasure, or healing.