Years on stage show dancing morphed into time spent alone drawing. Being a Pisces, it was an easy transition. Illustrating in graphite soaked me in pure satisfaction for years. It wasn’t until my publishers hoped color illustrations would sail their sinking ships that I was slaved into painting. It took awhile, but eventually it wasn’t the task dominating me, but the other way round.

Sometimes it's about tightening down the hatches and keeping an eye on the charts to see just where a little boat could sail, but it's also about jumping in and cavorting about in an ever-changing sea. Not taking things too seriously and enjoying the good stuff that comes one's way works for me.

At times it’s an intense and stressful exhibition, similar to theatrical sex, and sometimes it’s intimate and very satisfying. My painting is sublimated desire and it keeps me fit. Isolated in small-town North Carolina from much of the best gay life has to offer, I intended that my painting would connect me with guys of the types I painted. And it has, giving me the time and means to sustain and maintain as Rio de Janeiro engulfs my fantasies and spits them out real.