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I was born at ST. Vincent`s Hospital in Greenwich Village to DeWolfe and Grace Hotchkiss on December 23, 1945.

A year later my parents moved to Sherman , a small town in western Connecticut. I went to a small grade school of about 100 students from 1st to 8th grade. We were isolated, and didn`t have a television until I was in seventh grade and then only received one channel. Other than hanging around various dairy farms when not in school, I spent most of my time wandering around the woods with a dog or cat for company.

I went to high school in Kent CT for two years, but my last name of Hotchkiss was the name of a rival school. Because of that and the fact that I was a niave country kid, I was the subject of more than my share of heckeling and abuse. I asked my parents to take me out and they eventually complied. I finished up my secondary schooling in the gritty urban surrondings at Mount Vernon H.S. in Queens NewYork. I then attended colledge, but dropped out after my first semester. Apparently my mind was elsewhere.

Spending a couple year in Venice and Santa Monica California, I took in the hippy experience. Then I spent some time at the Esalon Institute in Big Sur. I headed back east and for most of the next five years I lived in Gaylordsville CT working in my parents store The Basket Shop, a old fashioned roadside gas/gift shop. Eventually my wanderlust picked up again and I moved to Torrington , Waterbury , and New Haven Ct, all of which were run down defunct mill towns. Then on to Providence RI., Boston, Long Island City, San Francisco, and Chicago. I was a rolling stone, living in over 50 different places such as rooming houses, cheap hotels, YMCA`s, and other inexpensive places. I had about the same number of jobs; day laborer, factory worker, janitorial, and other bottom rung positions.

Aparently I was a restless soul with a raw curiosity about life. I didn`t know exactly what I was seeking; I simply knew that I craved new places and experiences!

Dabbling in art in my teen years by sketching and doing watercolors , I kept a hand in art. But in my late teens, 20`s and early 30`s I pretty much abandoned my pursuit of art and painting. Then in a rooming house on Valencia St. in San Francisco I began doing watercolors again. I kept the theme alive, eventually moving from watercolors to oils, I`ve continued to do abstract oils ever since.

My father was my inspiration to become an artist. He was a fine artist who worked in oils and watercolors, and had a wonderful studio which I visited often. I observed him painting, his artwork on the walls, and I often thumbed through his collection of great art books. I became keenly aware of visual expression; either intentional or unintentional as expressed in all things in the world around us. I am intrigued by why certain things are attractive to me and other things are not. To me there is something mystical about intuitive facility. I can`t explain them but I find I use it all the time. I enjoy using my intuitive side to express my abstract artistic endeavors.