Q) What is "Mythic Naturalism"?

A) When we have questions about the world, there are really only 2 primary Modes of Inquiry available to us. One is directed into the world - science - and asks questions like "What is the world made of and how can we bend to our purposes?" The other is directed beyond the world - religion - and asks questions like "Where did the world come from and what is it for?" Both modes of inquiry are equally valid, equally essential, but the tools of one mode are invalid in the other. I believe it is the artist's job to build bridges between these 2 modes of inquiry - the Mythic and the Naturalistic...

Q) What is your religion?

A) I am a Philosophical Theist because I believe the cosmos is far too rational to be an accident, a Platonic Mystic because I believe the Immanent Temporal and the Transcendent Eternal are 2 separate and distinct Divinities, and a Troubadour of the Goddess because I believe the woman is the heart of all things...

Q) Who are the beautiful women in your paintings; do you use models?

A) I generally begin my design process with quick gesture studies, from which I will make a finished sketch. The process up to this point is by schemata: a system of mathematically ideal human proportions first classified by the ancient Athenians, and most famously demonstrated in Da Vinci's "Canon of Proportions." Only when I have drafted a figure study as perfect as I can make it without further guidance, will I bring in a model. This means I already know what my figure will look like; the model will only show me the way light and shade define the body, and complex wrinkles in the fabric of the costume. I try to invent the faces as much as possible. I have drawn thousands of them now, and I find it quite easy to draw a face in any position entirely from schemata.

Q) What would you most like to achieve with your work?

A) It might be nice if I could claim some grand, humanitarian objectives (Save the Forests!), but the truth is I have no such grand ambitions for my work (and I am generally suspicious of artists who do). Obviously I would like to make a good living by the creation of these mythological works, but the real truth is I am either a religious zealot or an addict-junkie: I need to realize these images - images that continue to percolate up from the deep, dark, hidden-away recesses of my psyche where ancient, primal impulses still restlessly stir.

I saw an interview once with the great painter Marc Chagall. He was at that time an old man, and yet he had an extraordinary quality about him: he seemed...empty. I mean empty in a good, but not-quite-human way. Each one of us is born with a burden that we carry through our lives. The look our faces acquire under this burden is so common, we don't even realize it's there - until we encounter someone who does not have their burden. Chagall seemed as though he had been able to divest himself of all the baggage that pulls down on the rest of us like gravity until... He had been pouring the contents of his overflowing psyche onto canvas for his entire life, and by the time this interview was made, he was just...empty. I don't recall ever seeing a person so weightless and otherworldly. I believe it must be the task of the artist to empty himself in this way, revealing his secret burdens to the world...

Q) How did you know that you were supposed to be an artist?

A) I was an introverted child, with an inclination to scribbling. In those early years I certainly never thought of myself as an artist (I wanted to be a fireman!), but at age 8 an unruly doodle accidentally became a pleasing representational picture; since that "eureka" moment I've always known I was an artist, and the only thing undecided was exactly what kind of artist I might become. One could say I was simply temperamentally and intellectually inclined to solitary creative activity, and that I was fortunate enough to find my life's direction at that early age. But I can honestly tell you that it feels like being chosen for something, not necessarily something important, but chosen nevertheless. It does not seem that I decided to have this life, but rather it was the only path available to me.

Q)Where do you normally receive inspiration?

A) An inspiration happens like a flashbulb in the dark. First, there is nothingness, and the unfocused state of mind one might expect to accompany the sensation of nothingness. And then without warning, a luminous image explodes in the mind. But before any aspect of the vision can be studied in detail, it's gone. A good friend of mine believes such flashes to be eternal images, older than the universe, and the painting is only a corruption of the exquisite purity of the vision itself. I also believe this to be true.

Q)Are there any facts about your life that could people understand your art more clearly?

A) I enjoy solitude and quiet contemplation, and have dedicated considerable thought to the hidden, supporting structures beyond the superficial appearances of the world - eternal, immaterial things like the archetypal forms, laws of nature, and mathematics. I have been enchanted by the mysterious beauty of the unknown, a distant beckoning voice singing an invitation into discovery. In my work, the mysterious allure of this unknown Sanctuary of All Knowledge is seen as a feminine quality...

Q) What do you think your strengths as an artist are?

A) I believe my real strength as an artist lies in my ability to connect to and engage these ancient conceptions of the way of things, and reinterpret the psychological and spiritual dimension of an archetypal image for a contemporary, scientifically literate audience.

Q) This notion of yours - a transcendent Goddess of Infinite Beauty that is the Source of Existence - is considered by many to be, at least, "way out there", if not downright heretical. Do you actually believe this stuff?

A) These paintings are how I see the universe, how I try to understand why things are the way they are, how I seek to approach the Mysterium Tremendum - the Infinite Unknown. The Way of the Goddess is no more "out there" than the more established ontologies: The warrior God of the desert, who gives man free will, and then capriciously expels him from paradise because he has free will; or The non-existent infinitesimal point which borrows a trillion trillion electron volts from its future existence in order to come spontaneously - and uncaused - into being from nothing.

The Transcendent and Still Creator who waits for eternity to receive the immanent and active created - The Goddess waiting for the universe to complete his transformation into the Miraculous Resolution She is waiting for... I know that I know nothing, but this is the poetry I believe.

Q) How long does it take you to complete a painting?

A) That depends on the painting. I was able to paint the little landscape Tower and Castle in a single day, although watercolor landscapes generally take 3-7 days. The oil landscapes take about 2 - 4 weeks. The Mythic Naturalism paintings take much longer. There is a little variation from picture to picture, but usually it takes about 4 weeks to just design the painting (a week for the figure and costume, a week for the background, a week to do my color sketch, and a week to prepare the canvas and draw the image onto it), and than between 8 and 12 weeks to paint it. Complex design-elements can be very time-intensive: Children of Eternity and The Awakening both required more than 4 months to complete (more than 1000 hours each). I'm not going to say how long it took to do Parsival's Lament - its too embarrassing to confess - but I won't be doing anything that crazy for a while. I have been known to work more than 120 hours in a week (usually when painting the figurative part of a painting), but mostly I work between 60 and 70 hours per week.

Q) You introduce some fairly complex ideas in your paintings and essays. Where can people learn more about such things?

A) My favorite author is Joseph Campbell. His very comprehensive analyses (across time and geography) of the psychological, anthropological, and spiritual dimensions of religious belief is an endless source of esoteric knowledge. He is a challenging, but edifying read. I have read most of his many books; The Power of Myth is probably a good place to start, and The Hero with a Thousand Faces is one of the very best books I have ever read. Recommendations: the 4 volume Masks of God, Transformations of Myth through Time, The Mythic Image, and The Mythic Dimension. He also compiled a volume of writings by Carl Jung - The Portable Carl Jung - which is very satisfying.

Carl Sagan is a magnificent writer, atheism notwithstanding. The encyclopedic breadth of his knowledge, and his sincere joy in the mechanics of the material world, combine to create eminently readable, highly educational books on the miracle of the living cosmos. Recommendations: Cosmos, Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors, and Demon-Haunted World.

Paul Davies is another very good science writer who ventures, with considerable detail, into more arcane territories of scientific and philosophical knowledge - the nature of time, the nature of the quantum domain, even the nature of God. He is an accomplished scientist who is prepared to contemplate the nature of what is beyond nature. Recommendations: The Mind of God, God and the New Physics, and About Time.

The turn-of-the-century Russian philosopher P.D. Ouspensky (disciple of the legendary mystic Gurjieff ) is an extraordinarily challenging read (for me anyway). He is not for the faint-of-mind, but if you enjoy agonizing over spectacularly intricate webs of syllogistic virtuosity, this is the man for you. You will almost certainly encounter ideas you never have before. A word of warning: he takes his time getting to the point, so be patient. Recommendations: A New Model of the Universe and Tertium Organum.

Michael S. Schneider has written a magnificent book, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe, which I have read now 4 times. The clever subtitle should be sufficient to compell you to acquire this must-read book: "The mathematical archetypes of nature, art, and science."

Q) What is your art studio environment like?

A) Sometimes I play music - classical, jazz, rock - but I generally prefer silence. I'm a bit of a musician myself, and interesting music usually distracts me from the job I'm supposed to be doing. I have hundreds of books around,and I like to have reproductions of artwork on the walls - a bit of my own work but mostly the work of artists I admire - a little inspiration can go a long way on a bad day. I like to keep my work area tidy and well organized - I dislike chaos.

Q) How do you think you have benefitted personally from choosing the life of a artist?

A) The hours are insane. The pay is an insult. The boss is a tyrant - some say he's crazy. No benefits. No vacation pay. Whatever goes wrong is my responsibility. The life of an artist is a relentless succession of frustrations and disappointments - and I could not have survived any other way. I don't work and play well with others, and so I have endeavored to endure in a difficult business that abounds with cheats and scoundrels. But without really intending it, I have discovered a great deal about the world and my place in it. To have a sense of purpose, and thus a sense of grace, is indeed the greatest benefit I have derived from life as an artist.

It is my considered belief, however, that one does not choose to be an artist. Like being tall or intelligent, it is something one is or is not. I truly believe anyone can learn to draw or paint; what is less common is the desire to draw or paint, the need to spend countless hours in complete solitude exploring the beckoning frontiers of one's interior kingdom. And it does not seem like passion that drives the artist: I do not leap from my bed in the morning and scream, "Today I must paint...or DIE!" When I wake, I breath and I make art; each equally essential and equally mundane.

Like a world in orbit falling through the elliptical impression in space-time made by the host star, an artist is trapped by the gravity of something beautiful and mysterious at the center of their existence. Such things do not choose to follow one path instead of another; they come upon the only path that is available to them and follow it because it is their ineffable, inevitable nature to do so. I think I am the only thing it was ever possible for me to be.

Q) Is there a book of your work?

A) There is...although it is not yet available at a bookstore near you. The LotusMaiden - an Artist's Search for the Secret of the Sky Goddess is complete and available as an online e-book - and I continue to to try and get it published as a real book.

Q) Who is your favorite artist?

I absolutely love everything done by the Czech painter Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) and the American painter Thomas Moran (1837-1926). The pastoral perfection of Mucha's flower girls and the spectral ethereality of his awesome Slav Epic murals never fails to move me where I live. And Moran's sublime vision of a new undiscovered world blessed and nurtured by a divine will are simply the most beautiful paintings I have ever seen. I suppose a part of my creative ambition has been to try and bring these contrasting styles together...

Among living painters, Howard Terpning (painter of North American Indians), Clyde Aspevig (landscape painter), and Mian Situ (painter of life in rural China) are true masters.

Q) Who were the most influential people in your life?

A) My parents, who taught me to respect hard work and fear mediocrity; Carl Sagan, who taught me about the astounding universe of our perceptions; Joseph Campbell, who introduced me to a new universe of transcendent magic, inside which the cosmos of our perceptions hides; and my wife, who taught me to "shut up and get back to work "...