So, what have you been up to lately, artistically?
Currently I’m working on a set of huge paintings that I’m extremely excited about.  They will be included in a major retrospective of my work that will be presented by the San Jose Museum Of Art in October of 2008.  The show will include over 50 of my best paintings from the last twenty years as well as drawings, sculpture, and objects from my personal collections.  A huge comprehensive catalog will be published by Last Gasp to document the show and the possibility of the show traveling, perhaps even to Europe, is being planned as well. I can’t discuss the subject matter of the new paintings I’m working on as I’m keeping it under wraps until the show date becomes close.  All I’ll say for now is that one of the paintings is 10’ x 12’, my largest ever.  I’ll be working on this series for most of the upcoming year so they can be photographed for the new book and then I’ll start on new series of work for a gallery show that will open shortly after the museum show begins.
Other than that, I’ve got a large new painting that I’m including in a show that Merry Karnowsky is putting together next month in June to commemorate her gallery’s tenth anniversary.  

Where do you draw the inspiration for your work form?
One moment I might be marveling over the differences in rendering techniques of cysts and warts between Wally Wood and Basil Wolverton from the Ugly Sticker bubble gum card series of the 1960’s.  A short while later I could be enthralled by the writings of the great paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson as he discusses the hybridization between modern and Neanderthal populations found in the fossil remains of the Skhul V skull.  I’m all over the place when it comes to the things that inspire me and try to stay open minded to all the information that our minds are constantly bombarded with everyday.  Overall, I’d have to say that I take the most inspiration from studying the lives of the great innovators and iconoclasts that have come before us.

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'Lost at Sea' 18" x 14" Acrylic on Canvas