To paraphrase Ursula K. Le Guin: Artists should be judged by what they create, not by what they say about it.
That said:
I am a rock. Sandstone: easily abraded and sculpted by water and wind; a sharp blow will shatter me to pieces.
I am an island. We all are.
Few risk a voyage to my shores, but they do like to see my family album: all those denizens of my waking dreams, the best of which now grace the walls of many hundreds of homes and businesses throughout the world.
As is the case for most artists, I take great risks in turning myself inside-out, and I’ve always longed for the tools that would help me give physical realization to the images in my mind with greater clarity and ease. I have used charcoal, pen and ink, gouache, casein, watercolors, oil paint, acrylic paint, alkyd paint, printer’s ink, bronze, aluminum, wood and pencil and plaster and wax and earthen clay and oil clay. I’ve used paper and canvas and hide glue and silk and nylon. I’ve used overhead projectors, opaque projectors, slide projectors, rubbings, tracing paper and homemade carbon paper. I’ve used my fingers to help me compose, a string compass to help me draw an ellipse just so. I’ve used calipers and measuring sticks, and perspective frames made of wood and string. I’ve used cameras, from an old Graflex 4X5 built the year I was born to the latest multi-megapixel digital kind popular today. Always experimenting. Never satisfied. Always on the hunt for whatever it takes to make my art better; to make what I see in my mind’s eye into something others can see, too. Technology has always been the greatest limiting factor in this pursuit, and each new tool or technique has had its days of hope, success, and disappointment. There were always limitations and problems both small and large.
But all this has lead me to experiment with the latest technologies available today. The struggle to find a new voice, a new technique, a new tool seems never-ending. In 1985, Harbinger Press published a children’s book (The Mirror) I wrote and illustrated. It is widely considered to be the very first children’s book illustrated in color on a computer and then output to film and paper. And I’ve experimented with other ways to use a computer in my work: another tool to help me make real that which is in my mind.