1) What can you tell us about the story behind "Golden Fish?"
This image came into my head one night as I tossed and turned trying to fall asleep... The waves, the fish, the boat, the lilies, the moon just kept rotating in my mind's eye. Finally, to appease my muse, I found a sketchbook and put the first sketch down on paper. Only then was I able to sleep. As another aside: I had just watched the "The Luminous Fish Effect” episode of Big Bang that evening, which, I have no doubt, was the starting seed that my imagination ran with.
4) You've said elsewhere that 95% of your art education happened outside of the classroom. What sort of things do you find yourself learning now, particularly with personal pieces?
Increasingly, it has become less about "getting better" ....and more and more about finding the heart of it all. Finding the "why" in the art I'm making. Thinking about the soul and storytelling of a piece. Learning to listen to my inner voice rather than drowning this out with critiques (from both my inner critic and others) about what I should change.
10) What keeps you coming back to fantastic art, both looking at it and making it?
There is a certain delight that comes from getting to visit (and re-visit) a childlike world of magic and wonder. It's the challenge and delight of telling a visual story that, to me, is truer than literal truth. It's getting to take these brief fleeting glimpses and imaginings and translate them so that others can see them too.
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