Jack of many trades, mastered one or two.

Art is where humanity lives. The technology we have created to make our world livable, to adapt our environment to us (rather than what every other species does), has allowed us great privilege and bestowed upon us great responsibility. Whereas technology is a fabulous tool, it has no consciousness - art does. When we create, we express our collective soul; it is the heartbeat of a species that has done what none other could - communicate using symbols. We share our thoughts, our dreams, our pasts and our hopes for our children's future. In that sense, we are all artists.

I was born in December of 1962, less than a year before President Kennedy was assassinated - the last of the baby boomers. Coming of age in the late 70s, it was post-Vietnam, post-Summer of Love, post-Watergate... post-everything. It was a weird time. I led a meandering life that saw me through too much to tell here, but my experience ranges from blue-collar to white-collar, from jail to academia and, now, with more than 20 years of sobriety, I am a soon to be retired professor of communication studies at California State University, Sacramento. I am not special, my story, while unique, is only so inasmuch as all of our stories are. It is part of a mosaic. It is part of what constitutes this thing we call, "humanity."