People sometimes describe me as a self-taught painter. It even showed up in Art Chowder Magazine — one of the few issues they printed before shutting down. But I’ve never liked the phrase.

It makes it sound like I pulled this ability out of thin air, or that I got here without anyone showing me how. And that’s not true. I had help.

I started the way many artists do — by trying and failing. I tried books. I tried YouTube. I asked around. I wanted to learn oil painting, and I couldn’t figure it out on my own. Eventually, through word of mouth, I heard about a free painting class taught by a man named Barry Blackerby.

At first, I didn’t know who Barry really was. Most people in the class didn’t. Students came and went all the time, but I stayed. I wanted to learn this badly enough that I would’ve kept searching if I had to. Along the way, I also took a few workshops — a few from Joe Kronenburg, and one expensive class from a retired airbrush artist who used to paint cars out in the Valley. He said it was good money. I could’ve followed in his footsteps if I wanted to paint skulls and naked ladies on motorcycles. But that was never what I wanted painting to be about.

Barry was different. Quiet, kind, generous with his time. For a long while, he never said much about his background. Then one day, he brought in a replica of The Arnolfini Wedding by Jan van Eyck. And it was perfect. Not just close — perfect.

I started asking questions.

Barry explained the painting in layers I never would’ve discovered alone. He told me about the symbolism — the convex mirror, the candle, the tassels, the dog, even the three lemons on the windowsill representing the Trinity. It was the kind of knowledge you don’t get from watching a few tutorials.

That’s when I learned he had studied at Oxford. That he had traveled the world to visit museums — the Louvre, the Sistine Chapel. That he’d been a professor. And here I was, learning from him, for free, in a small classroom.

I stayed in that class for years. Long after I’d learned the techniques, I stayed for the culture, for the sense of focus and quiet. There were about eight of us who stuck around — a small, loyal group.

But it didn’t last.

A woman named Marsha started bringing in a young lady in a wheelchair who couldn’t speak. Barry, being the good man he is, gave most of his attention to her. That wasn’t the issue.

The issue was Marsha — who didn’t understand the nature of the space. What had once been a quiet, focused art class, interrupted only by the occasional inside joke, slowly filled with the noise of YouTube videos, dance footage, and randomness from her phone. And her laugh — oh God, her laugh — was an unpleasant cackle.

Worse, she let all of her caretaker friends know about the class, and soon we were interrupted by a steady stream of interlopers. People arrived who had no interest in painting and no understanding of what the class had once been.

The room changed.
One by one, the regulars left. Until it was just me and one other.

I stayed out of loyalty, but I had already learned what I came to learn. I couldn’t keep showing up to a space that had been swallowed by noise.
The culture, despite my desire to have it return, was gone, and it wasn't going to come back.

It was the end of an era — a beautiful group that I was lucky to be a part of.
Had I not been in Spokane, in the year 2014, and free on Wednesday afternoons, I would have missed it completely.
It was rare. And I’m grateful.

After that, I began what most people think of as “self-teaching.” I bought books. I collected videos. I painted from Jerry Yarnell lessons, studied illustrations by Gustave Doré, and copied work by artists I admired — Thomas Kinkade, Edward Hopper, Canaletto, Gilbert Williams. I reverse-engineered paintings and found mentors in pages, not people.

I paint every day. I’ve never gotten tired of it. And I don’t think I will.

So yes, I’m self-educated. But no — I’m not self-taught.

I had help. I had a teacher.
And I got a serious head start.