Though I didn’t plan it this way, because of these two different impulses that led me to paint, I also have two different styles. The paintings in which I want to make a statement or to ‘tell a story’ are usually large oil paintings, and the paintings simply for the joy of living are smaller, often watercolors. These paintings are ‘atmospheric,’ because I particularly enjoy painting scenes at night, at dusk or dawn, or when it’s raining or foggy outside.

My large paintings sometimes show apocalyptic scenes. The first apocalyptic painting I painted was in 1967, and is appropriately called The Apocalypse. I was painting a lot then, and this painting just happened. I tend to refer to it as ‘the flying chicken painting,’ because the cooked chicken a woman was carrying to the table to serve to her husband for dinner has sprung into the air due to a cataclysmic happening of some kind. Many years later, in 1996, I painted The Rapture, which shows another woman levitating while she is cooking dinner. Is it surprising that I am working on a third painting called The Second Coming?

Humor is an important element in my work, but it is usually understated.

The San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA