Its odd how things I did as a child like observing dead bodies, dancing on table tops and taking photos of nude dolls are still alive and well in my life today.

Growing up in a coastal tourist town with a population of 100 inspired my friends and I to be creative for our home-alone time. We would perform the Can Can on sheets of plywood over saw horses in the garage or wear high boots and be dancing Go-Go girls like we saw on T.V. We would serve our friends red colored water emulating the wine our parents served every night in the bars. Our inspiration surely came from my mother who built her thriving bar business by “playing the bottles.” She would use the long mixing spoons to play the alcohol bottles in time with the jukebox. My performance art didn’t end here nor did my dancing bodies.

My girlfriend and I loved to pose our nude Barbie dolls in action poses using the 50-cent camera we bought. The gift shop owner would not give us our developed pictures because our photos appeared immoral to her. Some things haven’t changed much since then. Recently I sent slides of my art to be digitalized for my web site. I requested the service to crop the images and the vendor replied they wouldn’t because of the subject matter. I long for the acceptance of the nude body I found in my years abroad. I feel as a whole our society is repressed and it would be healthier for everyone, especially me, if we took time more often to dance naked in the woods.

Passion was always a part of our play. My girlfriend and I would send away for signed photos of stars like Clark Gable, Elvis, and the Monkees. We would cut out and decorate hearts expressing our love for them. To be prepared for our fantasy boyfriends we would wrap our arms around telephone poles and passionately kiss the pictures we pasted to them, hopefully bringing fantasy lovers to life. As an adult artist I have always used passion to motivate my work, most recently using fantasy Internet romance.

Our performance art was not always light hearted. Empathy with the dead kittens from the “Cat Lady’s” home near my parents’ restaurant led us to perform ritual burials. We would get empty cigar boxes from the restaurant then rummage around in the post office trash to collect discarded fabric samples. We would carefully place a kitten on top of the multi colored fabric and put cat food by their face. Then we’d spray them with Raid and layer more fabric on top to keep them warm. The burials would take place with hand made crosses and prayer sheets.

A few years after these burials my dad committed suicide. A few years after my dad died my friend’s mom committed suicide. Were we picking up on their premonitions with our kitten burials?

I believe this the beginning of art as therapy and my fascination with dead bodies. In the recent past I worked on dissecting three cadavers for my personal research. I found this a therapeutic and rewarding experience, so I suspect a strong connection to my past.

The child’s play of ritual burials, dancers and nude doll photos is continually being transformed in my adulthood. I always return to drawing as a way to transform life’s pain and loneliness into the joy and love that is evident in my life. Art was and still is a form of mediation, a way for me to express my emotions. It is my religion, my spiritual practice, my community service, and my therapy all rolled into one.

Going forward I want to draw from the active cadavers of the anatomonist Gunther von Hagens and use computer images that “see” inside living active bodies for inspiration. Rather then the superficial Barbie dolls of my past I prefer using healthy living humans as the idealized bodies for my subjects. I want to build on my life as a multi-media performance artist through a concept I call Passion Edutainment Play. Collaborating with others inspires my work and motivates personal growth, like a web based performance piece my friend and I hope to create called “Nurse Nirvana Institute.”

Through observing death, physically dancing and connecting to people through a variety of venues I hope to bring more vitality to my sensual moving bodies. And I hope my work will always inspire people to dance naked in the woods.