Face Of A Very Strange Man

The Latin phrase Aut libri, aut liberi-Either books or children-has been the mantra of my adult life. I became a father just out of college, at a time when the cult of art possessed secrets as foreign to me as the daydreams of trees. More than anything in the world I wanted to join, to become a member in this secret society. Yet after a million words, a thousand tubes of chemical paints, and dead-end jobs just hovering above the ongoing poverty-by-minimum wage line, I made the raising of my children a number one priority-all expression kept waiting at a very close, oftentimes inclusive second. That is, the needs of my daughters became the "meaning and justification" of my art. This choice was made during tumultuous times raising my oldest daughter while working a dead end job as line cook in a rinky dink restaurant. Face of a Very Strange Man is a book about an artist "coming of age" in late 20th century America, seeking a path toward a life worth living, rather than succumbing to the failure of making a living to get through life.