EARLY YEARS — 1959 to 1982

Born 1959 near Hutchinson, Minnesota, on the black soil flatlands. Raised in Winsted, a small town conservative about modern art and thick with nicknamed characters. Roamed the fields by foot and Huffy bicycle — soil, worms, seasonal change, open sky.

The talent came through loss. His grandmother Katie Otto believed it passed from her daughter Rosemary — his aunt and godmother — who died in her twenties in a farm accident. Katie framed a painting he made at six, a bleeding cross inside circular forms, and hung it in her bedroom. His parents, William and Joan Otto, encouraged what they saw developing.

Charles Schulz first: daily strips accumulating into philosophy. Andrew Wyeth in middle school: truth in worn surfaces. In high school he painted photo-realistic oils and watercolors, and met the New York painter Philip Pearlstein at a party in St. Cloud — artists were real people, not names in books.

MCAD, Minneapolis, 1978 to 1982. BFA in Graphic Design. What came next was the commercial years.