The fact that my father was a Navy pilot and my mother a south Texas cowgirl goes a long way to explaining the images you see on this site. My father being military we moved a lot. Three of the places we lived that had a formidable were, Hawaii, the imperial valley Ca. 2 miles from Mexico and Taiwan, ages 3-10 years. In Hawaii I was escorted by MP’s back home from restricted areas, if I was interested in something I checked it out. I turned 6 shortly after arriving in the valley and I was free to roam as far as I could, there were only two neighbors and the nearest was a mile away. We lived two miles from the Mexican border and we were surrounded by produce fields. This is the place the die was set for what I would become.
My father bought a Jaguar XK120 shortly after getting to the valley and did his own work on the car which was never ending and he solicited my help because I could reach into places with my skinny arms that were hard for him to reach. Besides produce the valley had a cattle industry that mainly brought young bulls in to feed out in the produce fields after they had beed picked(back then it was all done by hand so there was a lot of the crop left in the fields). this is situation is where the south Texas cowgirl comes in. the calves were moved by horseback from one field to the other which could several miles away..There being horses and cows my mother was going to be involved so was I. If i wasn’t in school I was helping the cowboys in the pens doing castrations which meant riding through the fields looking for sick calves which meant roping and doctoring, great fun for a kid. I got good enough that i would be sent out with one man which meant someone else wouldn’t need to go ( saved some bucks ). Horses, cows and cars were now in my blood.
From the valley we went to Taiwan (Formosa then) and i no loner had the cars or horses but a country very undeveloped and the freedom to go where ever I wanted in anyway I could get there, foot, pedicab or hitching rides on ox carts. Now I not only had horses, cows and cars I had the inquisitiveness to look at the world in a different way from experiencing very different cultures because I did not hang out a the O-club like my brother I was out with the “natives”. upon returning to the states we went to a small Georgia town which was another totally different culture, no horses or cows but cars (my father bought two Jaguar XK’s). I was in Georgia foe two years when my father brought us to Austin, TX so he could get his masters degree ( Austin because my mothers parents were living there and UT was there ).
I was just turning 14, no horses or cows at first but I was getting good enough with the car stuff my father started buying Ford Thunderbirds that had mechanical issues and I would fix them and he would resale them. This led to me working on friends parents cars and a friend started buying basket case motorcycles that I would redo. When I was 16 my girlfriend wanted a horse (some girls are born with a horse addiction) and she could have one because she lived in town but I didn't, horses were back and have never left. I initially just pleasure ride but with me one thing leads to another, I learned how to shoe them to save money which led to doing others horse and it bloomed into a business that involved every aspect of equine management. The cars in this period moved to truck and trailers. Where is the art? When I was a senior in high school I had to take music, speech or art,I took art. In my opinion artist have a drive to do it and bring a creativeness that is unique to the project that are working on, I copy so I do not consider myself an artist I consider myself a craftsmen.
When I was about 30 I got interested in building structures so I built a shop connected studio and a home on ranch property my parents owned with the intention to start doing building as my occupation. My timing was terrible the U.S. was going into recession and building in Texas almost stopped. A friend whom became a business partner said you know how to work on cars and I said I wasn’t interested in maintenance work so she said how about restoring Jaguar Xk’s. The wheel turns round and round. I’m back into cars. Being a Hot Rodder at heart we moved from XK’s to modifying Jaguar XJ’s ( AMGizing). In this path I was walking I had to develop new higher level skills. My drawing came from my hand eye coordination and ability to see what needed to be done in resurrecting cars and motorcycles with a higher degree of subtlety. The metal sculpture and wrought iron came from shaping horseshoes some of which are quite complex. The DMJ Jaguars came from learning how to shape metal from cold and hot bending and shaping along with machining and fabricating the parts to transform a classic luxury road cat to at times a bad ass rocket. During all this time I have still been drawing ( pen and inks ) off and on mostly wildlife subjects and doing some sculpture for friend and family as gifts.
Now what am I up to at 69 years of age. At the beginning of this year, 2018, a friend whom is a wildlife biologist told me he had written some children books about wildlife about ten years ago a got stopped because he didn’t know how to illustrate them, well I said I would and that is why I did the color, new to me, drawings of some of the birds that are represented here. The Mustang images and other horse related images are because of a brother- in- law is involved with Mustang Heritage Foundation. My mission is to amp up my production of illustrations and metal work of wildlife, horses and people of different cultures to hopefully bring some interest in things different from your everyday being and help promote the understanding and exceptance of them (maybe open a heart). In the past I have given these sort of endeavors away, in future I will be selling them to put the proceeds (except direct production cost) into organizations doing good work. The choice of who these entities are will be open to those who purchase my work if desired.
What you see on the site now is only the start.