Before Oils Early 70's Page 2
Back home, I tried to start up the college student thing, but I spent more time with a frisbee in the park than the books in the classroom. It was 1971. I couldn't get serious. I wanted to play.

My pen and ink work developed in complexity.
Here's an example of the era. The strange cut is so it would wrap around a lampshade. I must have been trying to get practical. You may notice it's not finished so I name it "Unfinished Lampshade".
A close up of the lampshade. I took little interest in the politics of the day, but I seem to be making some statement here. Probably came from listening to Starship.
Home in those days was in Racine, Wisconsin. High school happened there and I left for the military from there and I came home to there. I tried to educate myself in the education field....deeper than dull. Grey and lacking contrast.

I guess during those post military days in Wisconsin, 1971, I experienced my heaviest hippy hits. Colors unknown to the common man. Mercy. I thank God that I survived with my mind intact and was later able to pass on good genes to make my son. Let me just say, though, I'll never forget the facination of those mental corridors.

As with every era of my life I met some fine people with names spanning from John to Fish. Racine, Wisconsin, saw Tom Van Horn with his longest hair and his tackiest clothes.

A great memory from those times was hitch hiking from Racine to Kansas City to Los Angeles to San Francisco and back to Wisconsin. All the rides were good and the people were great. In those days the entrance ramps to freeways were lined with people holding signs stating their destinations.

Things weren't really happening and at the same time there were too many "happenings." So when an Air Force buddy called from California inviting me to go west, I dropped it all and went. I ran off to the mountains in my VW bug. My Cadilac and my motorcycle had passed. About all I took with me was my cat. Lake Tahoe. North shore. Mile high. What a place to spend the '70's. I still spent a lot of time messing around with ink and other art tools. Still just messing around, though.
Now, I can just hear you talking about how this guy had some thing about smoke. Well, yeah. I'm sorry, Mom. It was the times. Smoke was a factor. Even though I was less than responsible, it was a great time of my life. I must say that while so many were rocking and rolling I was up in the hills listening to the birds and watching the snow fall. My hair grew and my jeans belled. I had a great dog, Uncle Remus. Tahoe was the most spectacular place one could hope to witness. I wish I could show you a movie of all the things I experienced. That glorious water. To snorkle on the east shore amongst the huge rocks in the crystaline water, so deep, so cold.

To lose yourself in a whiteout blizzard on top of Mt. Baldy (it got so strong I had to carry my dog as she was rather short); to savor what I called the waterfall snow that fell just that heavy, and then the mile high sun broke through, so radiant. No wonder I developed an appreciation for God's glory that is with me even to this day.
It was during those early days at Tahoe that I started collecting tubes of oil paints and my house took on the smell of turpentine.

It started fairly simple like this one called "Early Envy". My first paintings were on canvas textured paper.

A collection of those paintings on canvas paper follows on the next page.
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