From the beginning it seems as if my art was borne of two worlds. One world was sensual, dark and mysterious, the other spiritual, light and magical. Two sides of my nature competing for and completing my creative vision. As a little boy I was brought up in the Catholic faith. The imagery and feeling that came with standing in a large church with statues of various saints looking over me, candles flickering, and glowing stained glass windows was hypnotizing. I was enthralled and impressed, but I knew there was a cathedral inside my head too. I got glimpses of it and it was magnificent.

While growing up alongside 5 brothers and sisters (I was the oldest) finding space to myself was next to impossible. So I used my bed as a workspace, usually drawing something up from my imagination. In 4th grade I subscribed to the Science Fiction book club. Edgar Rice Burroughs novels (John Carter of Mars series) caught my interest, but it was the amazing covers of these books and inside illustrations of Frank Frazetta that sparked my passion! Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Bernini and other classical artists that I dug up from the local library were my only inspiration to date. I would stare at, study and copy Frazetta's images. What power his drawings and paintings possessed! Obsessed, I realized my own love for the human figure.

Drums. Even as a kid my hands, my feet, my heart, my head, my whole body were alive with infinite rhythms. The musical part of my being always wanted to partner with my visual self, yet this would not come to fruition until many years later.

Soon after graduating High School I was a full time student at the Art Center College of Design located in Pasadena CA. In technique, in thinking, in seeing, all parts of my visual vocabulary were expanded. Here my influences expanded greatly too and I learned what it meant to bring "concept" to a piece of art. Not just tell a story with pictures but say something in a new and unique way that goes beyond storytelling. I got turned on to early art, Gothic, Renaissance, and a lot of late 1800's art. The Symbolist period with the Pre Raphaelites, the Decadents, Art Nouveau. There was an ethereal quality I loved in the Pictorialist photographers of those days too. The editorial illustrators of the late 1970's Marshall Arisman, John Collier, Allan Cober, Ralph Steadman, Brad Holland, etc. grabbed my attention. The social and political commentary these illustrators were making struck a chord in me. Here was art with a real purpose to communicate issues about humanity. It was art that was speaking to thousands, in some case millions of people.

Soon after graduating from Art Center (BFA Illustration) I moved to New York. The jobs trickled in, Rolling Stone commissioned a portrait of Elvis Costello, New York Times Magazine put my portrait of a young Hemingway on its cover, but it was a series of illustrations I created for Sports Illustrated that finally put me on the map. One of the projects involved 10 days with soon to be boxing champion Mike Tyson. I created life size drawings, paintings and studies of Tyson and the trainers and boxers of Cus Damato's gym. Generally during the 80's I focused on social and political illustrations for magazines and Newspapers, as well as book covers.

I pushed hard to bring a new ideas to all my jobs but the norm in this business is the obvious, the literal and the cliche. There are too many editors and marketing people making decisions on art. After eight years of cranking out hundreds of editorial images for publications around the world, I realized I was reaching burnout, and yearned for something new.

I started hanging out with Kent Williams, Dave McKean, George Pratt, and the rest of the gang at the Allen Spiegel Fine Arts booth during the San Diego Comic Conventions.
Here I saw the power of the independent artist entrepreneur and started to create and sell my own products to fans, patrons, collectors. Now I teach this message of empowerment to others through my Artist As Brand workshops.

I started working in the world of film as a concept designer in 2004. I have concept designed for, The Ant Bully, The Golden Compass, Escape from Planet Earth, Kamlu, and the third Narnia film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Now my focus is on personal book, music, and film projects while teaching and inspiring others. I started a company called Artist As Brand® to empower art career independence. http://bit.ly/a8PnIc

I am married to Roxana Villa who is an amazing artist, and botanical perfumer. http://etsy.me/LgWaYS
She is the mother to Eve, her creative daughter now a college student.

So my personal vision continues to transform. Making a living from my art on my own terms is a challenge and a lot of work. Sometimes it feels as if my soul is growing and bursting the seams of my self imposed limitations.
The cathedral is still there to remind me of the possibilities. It's still magnificent!