Although I have been up to my eyeballs in the graphic arts since high school, I never put a brush to canvas until 2004. But had long thought of painting a series of portraits of jazz artists, so I enrolled in a five week evening course in large-format acrylics. In trying to prepare for the class, I painted several fish, thinking them good practice. When the class began, I already had the image of Thelonius Monk and a pretty clear vision of what I wanted. I have since added more jazz musicians, an homage to the amazing modern painter Adolph Gottlieb, and... I still like the fish.