This is just before Church in Washington, I’m sure. We lived and traveled from commune to commune (small homesteads too) from Washington State, through Oregon, and into the Santa Cruz Mountains of California; Fairbanks Alaska at one point as well. I remember the blue bus we traveled in, sometimes we slept in a tent along with a group of others in a meadow opening between long drives. Each community had its own garden, and we all pitched in and we all ate.

Though that was not always the case, there were times where we had nothing to eat and as you may have seen in some movies, we pulled in behind a grocery store and searched the large dumpsters. One time in particular we had no food and my parents were keeping us entertained until we got sleepy. Then there was a knock on the door and the Church down the street had brought us a box of food, grateful moments. Those experiences were few though, the greater ones outshine them. Like chopping down a tall tree in Oregon and each of us kids carrying our load back to the homefront. Sitting up in the barn where my stepdad would draw and paint, catching salamanders in the creek, or walking a woody trail home after school, and so many others.

That’s my stepdad on the right, another artist, he loved to paint the face of Christ onto wood with his thumb. Too often I wish I was back there again watching the thick fog of Washington push through the hay bale window. Or the wet, moist landscape of Oregon with its electrical storms and spider web lightening. Even the cold, Alaska, where the only thing to do at recess was slide down a snowy hill… Good memories.

I’m the one on the left.

And here is a picture of my mama in all her Earthy goodness.

I was 16 when my mom chose to settle back into the city of San Jose California, due to family and her divorce which was hard on all of us.

I was just hitting 18 when I was in my first group gallery exhibit. After that it seemed I was in every Cafe’ and gallery around the local area. What an amazing group of artists and writers there were before San Jose destroyed everything. After that I traveled to New York for two years and then up and down the California coastline drawing live, or exhibiting wherever I could.

I love the life and the people that I have had the honor to meet and speak with and learn from. From high society ‘intellects’ to the homeless I would sit with on my way home from work. I couldn’t get down the street without someone calling my name and that usually came with a hug. I think we are losing that aspect of who we are as a people, hate has foreshadowed care and contempt has eaten holes into many hearts. The world is close to a state of desperation, and you know what happens then… Desperate people do desperate things.