I'm just a county boy that was raised on a small farm in Idaho. We farmed a lot of small grain crops and did the ranch and milk cows thing. I would almost say that when it comes to farm and ranch I have done it all in one way or the other. I do love the lone cowboy look, with him and his dog, in an open field or looking out across the range. My situation changed though when I was just a young pup and trying to figure out life and stretching my legs. At one point I was caught between right with people and wrong with the law. I thought that a loyalty with people was stronger then the rules of society! Which at that point I was involve in a shooting where I was charged with aggravated battery with a weapons enhancement. They gave me 22 years fixed and 8 indeterminate for a total of 30 years! To be honest at 20 years old and just starting prison I felt I had something to prove so I assaulted someone and with Idaho just giving out time like candy I picked up 15 years more on the end. So it is still 22 but the end is 23 for a total of 45. The positive thing is that in 2025 it will be 22 years and the chance at parole! After my assault the prison put me in administrative segregation which was 23 hour lock down for 5, 1/2 years! During that time with no one to help me out I had to make money and pass the time so I started to draw. They had these little photocopies from the chaplain like prison art from California with the bible verses on the back of them and I just tried to take parts of them to draw. Which at that point was just a flexible pen a and a piece of paper. With our institution being a maximum security institution at that point and in ad seg, we couldn't have any pencil's. You would have to understand they thought we would use them to start fires or weapons! So no pencil's, hard pens, tooth brushes, tweezers, clippers and so on. So it was only a flex pen to draw with. Do you know how frustrating it is to try to draw something and not be able to erase it! Any way that is where I started. I did bounce between general population and segregation in total I did 9 1/2 out of this 20 so far in segregation. Now being in population, "main line" I do have a few pencil's but I still draw with the flex pens because I'm so use to it! I get a few books, tattoo magazines and photos to use for motivations on a few drawings. A lot of the time I have people just ask me for something and have an idea in hand to go off of.
I was in contact with a guy Reno, ? He was living in France. He did this exhibition in a gallery in Montpellier which he said " was his city and in named". I did get a photo of him standing with his friend jay, his girl Muriel and his mother in the gallery. You could see a few of the peonies that I had done in the photos. I lost his address years ago but he was showing some of our art!