Most folks want to know two things about my classic car art. Why cars? And why collage?

The first is easy. Classic cars are just flat-out cool. Am I a buff? A car buff? Maybe. I get a visceral reaction when seeing one. Do I fix them? Sup them up? No. Do I know the difference between a four-on-the-floor and a modified pom-pom? Not really, except one is in a Beach Boys song and the other in the best car song ever written by Ronny and the Daytonas.

The classic car is symbolic of so many great passions: travel, freedom, speed, love, sex, and the best of the best—rock and roll. I find them fascinating and powerful. In a word, classic.

The collage is a little more complex. There are a barrage of images thrown at us in any given day. Even more if you’re an internet user, which apparently you are. I like the idea that already existing images are being given a new purpose, completely out of context from their original source. I use commercially printed images from junk- mail, magazines, newspapers, catalogs, etc. I use the images as they’ve been printed and I find this to be the most interesting and challenging aspect of the collage process. I take the images as I find them. I don’t surf for images on the internet. I don't say “I need a ’57 Chevy” and then go fish for one on the web. It defeats the purpose. The randomness of the image discovery is what makes these so much fun to put together.

More than anything I try to make the collages humorous. I mean why take it all so seriously? I like the balance of the kitsch and the cartoon, the classic cars together with the fruits and nuts. They’re supposed to be fun, weird, and sometimes perverse.

Why do I paint them when I’m through? Why not?