Biography
You really want to know about me? Okay; but honestly, you'll learn more about me by looking at the work I've done.
That's what I looked like in 1989, over on the right. I'd post a more recent picture, if I had one I liked. But I'm still recognizable. Just more gray in my hair, higher numbers on the scale, and .. ummm. I look about 20 years older, for some reason.
I was born in November of 1953, and apparently I teethed on Prismacolor pencils. I don't really remember that part.
I do remember drawing pictures when I was supposed to be taking notes, all through school. All I ever really wanted to do was draw.
In the spring of 1972, when I was a Freshman at Michigan State University, I went to my first Science Fiction convention (a Detroit Triple Fanfair.) Since I didn't have any money, poor college student that I was, I slept in the movie room, and had a single candy bar as food for the weekend.
But I couldn't help but notice that other people were selling bad pencil drawings of Mr. Spock, and getting enough money for sandwiches and pizza. So I said to myself, "Self, I can sell bad pencil drawings of Mr. Spock!" So I did. And the next thing I knew, I was a Con Artist.
Years passed, and things happened. I wound up working for Mayfair games in '83, got my first Dragon cover in '85, started doing book covers for Llewellyn, and realized that, somehow, I'd become a pro.
In 1987, knowing that Anne McCaffrey was going to be at the same con I was, I did a picture of Robinton, hoping that she would buy it. She did, and it grew into a book called People of Pern.
A few years later, I finished the Robin Wood Tarot Deck, and my career was really underway.
I just kept merrily working away, doing book and magazine covers, and the occasional piece for a con, until 1993, when I got the flu and couldn't seem to get over it.
Eventually, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. As it got gradually worse, I did less and less with traditional media, until I finally realized that I was living from pain pill to pain pill when I tried to paint, (which is no way to live) folded up the studio, and gave it all away.
For the next ten years I did all my work on the computer. I got very involved in 3D art, and even worked on several software books. I also wrote a book about Ethics, one about my Tarot deck, and one that is really a very long, involved joke about cats and gravity.
Finally, using a combination of meditation, yoga, biofeedback, and singing, I pushed the fibro into remission in early 2005.
By that time, though, I was doing a lot of things in Second Life®, which is a virtual reality platform. So now I divide my time mostly between SL™ and other projects. At the moment, the other project is mostly the ongoing revision to this website. But I have all kinds of things planned, from fiber arts to drawings to tutorials to books, for when it's finished.
If you'd like to keep up with what I'm doing on a day to day basis, I have a couple of blogs and a Twitter account. You can find links to all of them in the News section on my home page.
Thanks for reading this, and I hope you enjoy wandering around the site!