My earliest and most important art education occurred in rain puddles at my father's gas station when I was only three years old. The oil floating and reflecting on the skin of the water in myriad colors mesmerized me. The language of light and form, pattern and texture, color and iridescence, encoded its decrees on my eyes and brain permanently. I was hard wired to be an artist in a coal miner's and farmer's town in Ohio.

      My sister, Cindy, is 2 years three months older than me, and when she started first grade at age six; she received a red pencil box, erasers and crayons. It was vast treasure to me and I needed it. I cried and fussed and made a pest of myself but couldn't communicate my need. That window closed but God opened a door!

      Alternative art 1.a required hundreds of watermelon seeds and our green and white Formica table top. I invested countless hours arranging dark watermelon seeds and light, smaller cantaloupe seeds into prayer wheel-like circles. When my masterpieces began to resemble complex crop circles and more abstract designs, my mother, (God bless her!) felt there was something wrong with me and threw my hoarded seed collection away. The summer was over! But its music plays on in my art work still, today, decades later.

      My dear sister, who bought my first paintings and still cherishes them, asked me, "What has been The Best Thing?" I've valued the joy painting gives me, deeply loved and invested myself in my family, and cherished several wonderful friends; But The Best Thing is my dearest Lord and Savior. The intimate relationship I enjoy with my Creator has given me peace when the world is crumbling, hope when the economy is going to bust, comfort when my heart was breaking, and joy unceasing and full of glory. I believe God is my Father and that He rejoices over me with singing! (Zephaniah 3:17)