I'm a huge fan of lowbrow and pop-surrealism artists like Robert Williams, Mark Ryden, Todd Schorr, Xno and others. But I wouldn't say I'm influenced by any of them. I started painting Carl Barks style fine-art cartoons in 1977; Williams's first major solo exhibition at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery was in 1979; Schorr's first solo exhibition was in 1986 at the Tamara Bane Gallery in Los Angeles; and Ryden's first major gallery show wasn't until 1998, at the Mendenhall Gallery in Pasadena, California. By that time, I had been painting, sometimes badly, for twenty years.
