I had a younger Brother (Dane) that was born with bad Cerebral Palsy. He was wheelchair bound for all of his life and as an older rooster now with my own kids, I look back with respect upon the sacrifices my parents made to give us both an equal upbringing and make his life (and mine) as normal as anyone else’s, though it was surely a crazy nonstop household filled with roaring laughter and love 99% of the time.

In those early years, Dane used to paint a lot with a mouthguard that had a brush in the middle of it and at the opposite end of the table, I weirdly used to love redrawing maps and flags with intricate detail but the pencils gave way to sport and I followed in my Dads footsteps with Hockey and Cricket. Sadly Dane passed away from Pneumonia not long after his 18th birthday. 

Thru my teens, I used to draw and paint and of course, art was always top of the list as an elective. Like most, I didn’t find a great love for art theory but mostly loved the challenges that prac almost always presented. Halfway thru 1986 a movie called Top Gun hit the screens and being in year 11, (like many young men) decided I wanted to be an aviator. However, not having selected the needed subjects, my parents were shocked when I decided to actually repeat year 11 to pursue this new dream. After term 1, finding that Chem and Physics and I didn’t really like each other… cruised thru the year using it as a refresher course of sorts.  

Year 12 came about and saw me living in Brisbane as my Dad had a new business role and at my new school (Sunnybank high), art became about having to work in particular types of mediums as part of the curriculum. Well, being a sketcher, I hated being told I had to make stuff out of clay for an entire term so, decided Art was sadly going to be my "6th"subject, meaning it didn’t count towards my “TE” Score. I proceeded to sit there and make Easter Island heads and penises from clay. Had a lot of fun but ended up with a VLA in art. Just so there is no confusion …. that is a “very low achievement”. It was ok, though I had ideas of doing business/law and was set up for that and art was a thing for fun.  In my spare time, I was mainly batting and scoring goals. I had a successful sporting life in those days having played at state level and first grade in both sports ….. giving it up in my early 20s when a little clothing business I had started at 19 was making waves.

I had attempted to do Uni externally and start a business in screen-printing but work got too busy. Something had to give, so business it was for me. Not long afterwards, I met the love of my life Wendy whilst grooving at a local haunt called "The Underground". An older woman!

Wendy and I were living in sin almost immediately (though she will tell you it took her a few weeks to warm to me), and about 2 weeks after we met she resigned her job, and we had a crack at making the Clothing business work. We bought a renovator house at Wollongabba and a 486 computer that had a programme called “Corel” installed on it. Like version 1. In the early days, it was called Squeegee Clothing (named after a Cocker Spaniel we named Squeegee) and was mainly focused towards Promotional clothing and Indoor Sports.

In 2001, thru a new contact, we ended up producing sponsored uniforms for the Boomers playing in the Goodwill games in Brisbane. Nike had let them down and they needed gear stat! I had never made a basketball uniform. Seemed like a great idea to start with guys that were like giants and pros LOL. Our logo at the time was a dog with a ball in its mouth. We couldn’t have the national basketball team running around with that logo on their gear….so the concept of, and brand “Kombat” came to life.

Over the next 17 years, we grew that business from a garage, to a bigger garage, to a bigger garage and a shed. Then to an industrial shed, bigger shed, 2 sheds, 3 sheds and a massive factory we thought we would never outgrow. Then we did, and plus 2 other storage facilities and a base in China. It was tough. Every level of expansion we funded thru increased values of our very modest home that we had bought and renovated. There were lots of tears shed along the way, no holidays, 100 hour weeks, growing pains only really other entrepreneurs could understand and 2 kids.

By 2007, we had 120 staff and were one of the largest businesses of our type in Australia. We had a fantastic crew, and many we now regard as family. It still wasn’t easy and the pressure was never ending but after 18 years, I didn’t know any other life. Wendy and I were seemingly a team made in heaven and managed to run the gauntlet to stay alive. Then out of nowhere, we were approached for an acquistion. We ended up doing the deal to cut a long melodrama short. We were both looking forward to a little breather. Wendy and I were off on our first ever real holiday with our little family. We went to da da da America for a few weeks. Whilst we were there, we visited some art galleries looking for a nice memento to take home. I found a few that I liked but scoffed at the price! Heavens, I can’t afford that! Then I thought (as you do), I’ll just paint my own when I get home...it will mean more to me :)  … and so, I did.

I went to Riot Art and purchased the biggest canvases I could, paint, brushes etc and painted my memento of a painting I had seen in our Kitchen (Image below). It was perfect to me. I also painted an Urban Pop painting of Wendy (nude of course!) and a huge piece of our little family with New York in the background. All of which still hang in our home today. Friends and family said, “they look great, you should do some stuff for sale”. Of course, you don’t know if people are being polite or genuine. I had a look around the industry and thought, I can do this. So, I spent the next 6 months developing 2 ranges (abstract and pop art) and learnt everything I could about website development. I released about 30 pieces on Ebay and had my own website. First week, I sold 7 pieces on Ebay and that was the beginning of my new career as an artist. I remember the very first piece. Someone offered me $700 for a painting of Marilyn I had listed for $1000. I ran upstairs excitedly and asked Wendy what I should do. She calmly said to counter back at $900. F#ck that, I wasn’t going to risk it for the biscuit, so I took the $700 and settled my first ever transaction for something I had truly made with my own hands. It was an incredible feeling.

Wendy and I had purchased a huge dump of a renovator in about 2009 on 160 acres (it’s still not finished!!) I didn’t have a studio. I painted outside in the elements in an unfinished besser block gazebo on the property (the very top banner image was in that gazebo). I made it look like a studio in photos (from all the right angles). That was where I painted for the next 2 years (rain, hail and freezing!). As I started to develop artistically, so did sales and I needed more space (Sound familiar?) as my paintings were starting to get pretty big, the future pool gazebo was looking like Jackson Pollocks studio, and I was tired of braving the elements . So, I moved into an unfinished shed (no lining or floor) we had built to use as a gym. I was in there for a few of years (shared as a gym) and outgrew that and moved into a more purpose built Shed. My current Studio, which has now expanded to include a decrepit shipping container that I do messy stuff in, about 150 sqm of racking for drying layered pieces and a massive storage shed for blank canvases and cartons. It might sound fancy, but its all pretty rough...its grotty work.