A candle is burning in the window of a cabin along a snow-covered road. An old man places another log on the fire; his dog rests by his favorite chair. He contemplates his next creation as he sits back to watch the fire from his favorite leather chair.

This man in his sixties hasn’t always lead such a quiet life of solitude.

As a child, at the age of three growing up in upstate New York he had to fend for himself and his brother. Growing up too fast because of the split up of his parents.This man searched for love in all the wrong ways. He searched all his life for it and got very hurt by most of the woman he encountered. To the few that really gave him love, his response was to push them away. For years he searched for answers. He got married in his early twenties to a woman with a past, seven years his senior and two children age ten and twelve.

He gave himself to this family, the one he never had. His heart and soul were given unconditionally in hopes for happiness, not knowing how this emotional vampire was sucking the life energy out of him until it was almost to late.

One day after that 16-year relationship ended, he sat at his desk with a gun in his mouth and the finger on the trigger. Not knowing how to stop the pain he felt from having been discarded like the wrapping paper that was left over after all the Christmas presents had been open, this is where he found himself! With nothing left inside, something happened that moment when he almost shot himself.

He received a gift. At that moment, that gift he had as a child was returned to him by something that saved him that day.

The memories that he carries of the past, what he has learned about himself and why he ended up there no longer haunt him. Instead, they inspire the creative gift he received that day twenty or so long, long years ago.

The images that he creates have a strange effect on the viewer. They are exciting and beautiful, yet so disturbing that you can’t stop looking at them. They suck you in and spin you through an emotional tornado until you spiral out of control.

Almost all have said wow! Others just wonder out loud,This quiet man sitting next to his fireplace pets his dog and picks up a sketchbook and pencil, with a few lines he starts a picture. With no real thought going into it, he just made a few lines on the page. Then laid the book down on the coffee table next to his favorite beverage, coffee. He always took it the same way, light with seven sugar substitutes, never sweet and low. Either cold in the summer or hot in the winter and never far from him, you will find a large cup of coffee.

He didn’t drink any longer finding out over 40 years ago about his own alcohol problem. Learning that he was an alcoholic was the start of his internal exploration of himself, seeking out what made him tick and discovering why he had to learn so much about himself. It has not been an easy journey to this quiet cabin. At one time, he couldn’t sell his pictures for twenty dollars, now they are selling for twenty thousand or more before they were even made.

There were so many obstacles for him to overcome. There were the internal ones like co-dependency, alcoholism, abandonment, and fear of intimacy. Letting go of them and learning new ways of coping.

You will find him saying from time to time that his divorce was the worst and best thing that ever happened to him! It caused him to learn what was really important. Setting him on his current path to creativity, through that gift he received that day that he sat at his desk with a gun in his mouth.

He picked up his coffee and took a sip looking down at his sketchbook. He sees the images start to form and take shape on the paper.  An image starts to form, which brings the paper to life. He picks up the sketchbook drawing the shape of a woman hanging from the top of the page flames reaching upward underneath her. Her body loosely put together in a massive shape that shows her flesh falling from her frame turning inside out as a flowers petal falls from the bud. The colors he uses are deep in their hue and radiate with vibrant emotion. Like a flower blooming in the springtime morning sun.