About the Author

I was born on October 10, 1927, and I grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930's. I enlisted in the army in 1946 and was stationed at Camp Lee, Virginia, near Richmond, where I met my wife and settled down. My father was a commercial artist, a steel and copper plate engraver for Dameron Pierson Stationery company in New Orleans. He was foreman ot their printing department. One of his tasks was to engrave printing plates to create paper money for Central and South American countries. I began drawing and painting as a child, but did not want to become a commercial artist like my father because I wanted to paint things that interested me, so I made a living as an accountant-auditor. I have exhibited at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and was a member of the Richmond Artists' Association for about fifteen years. We used to have fun exhibiting at malls until one day a City of Richmond Sales Tax Agent came by with a note pad and began writing down the names of artists who did not have a sales tax license. When I got the city license, the IRS required me to file a quarterly FICA tax form, and the State said I had to have a business license, and then the malls got worried about liability, so they made us buy liability insurance. Rules and regulations were taking up so much of my painting time that I said, "To heck with it, and I quit exhibiting." As a result, I have acumulated quite a few paintings over the years. This is why my life's collection of work is pretty much intact, and I decided to exhibit through books.