While some of my paintings are carefully composed and take months to complete (see I Want the Strings), much of my work is more emotional and fluid than analytical and planned.

This work was originally an old abstract that I had started and placed aside. For months it sat rolled up in the corner of my studio. One day, while I was in between commissions, I decided to recycle some canvasses and pulled this one from the corner, tacked it up on the wall, and started re-priming it.

As I applied primer to the canvas, I liked the way the blocks of white looked against the blue background – so I decided to play with that. I took orange and black oil sticks and drew some lines…they looked like stick figures and I just kept drawing. A dock began to emerge, and then I drew the shape of a fish and a few other lines, and started painting around the lines.

The work took on a life of its own and within a couple hours, I knew the painting was done.  It reminded me of my father and I fishing on the pier in Cape Canaveral when I was a boy – the only activity that both of us truly enjoyed together. It became the springboard for a series of best selling images, and is still one of my favorites. It currently hangs in the lobby of the Sandpearl Resort in Clearwater Beach and still generates great reactions (and calls!)