"Thinking Outside the Box" Painting

I love it when people look at my art and smile! In many regards, it’s compensation enough for the work that I do.

I haven’t always been an artist, but I have always had an interest in art. I was born and raised in Richmond, California, USA, in the San Francisco Bay Area, an area rich in artistic expression and opportunities. I attended UC Berkeley, where art and design often combined to set global trends.

Grandpa Hart, my mother’s father, was a conductor with the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe Railroad. Grandpa Hart was also a model railroader, and some of my earliest memories were of his model trains. I developed a love of trains and model trains at about age three. After waiting what seemed like an eternity, I was finally given the gift of an HO Scale model train at age ten. I have been a model railroader ever since!

I was accepted to UC Berkeley at age 16, and attended Cal part time during my senior year in high school. I was also working part-time at Safeway. My employment provided me with illegal access to beer. At age 17, after a high school football game, I got drunk and ended up getting arrested, after drinking a lot of that beer!

The following week, a family friend, who also happened to be a police officer, offered to take me on a “ride-along.” I rode with him while he worked a night shift in the rough City of Richmond, California. It was an exciting, dangerous, and thrilling evening. I was hooked!

I was hired as a police officer at age 20. I couldn’t even buy my own gun and bullets, but I could perform the work of a police officer. I worked in law enforcement for almost 30 years, and all the while, I maintained the hobby of model railroading.

Shortly before my 50th birthday, I tried to paint a back drop on my model railroad. It was a disaster. Nothing looked like I wanted it to look. I drove to the local art store and bought a book and its accompanying workbook, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty Edwards. I began sketching, and I haven’t stopped.

My first paintings were acrylic, and my subject matter was trains. I was in love with the process and the subject. Because I had spent a career focusing on details (fingerprints at crime scenes, exact measurements at accident scenes, carefully recording my observations in detailed reports, etc.), and because I had focused on minute details as a model railroader, seeing the details of light, shadows, shapes, etc., seemed to come naturally to me.