Collectors ask me this question more than almost any other: "If I miss this painting, can you make me another one — or sell me a print?" My answer is always the same, and it will never change: no. Every painting I make is a single original, the only one that exists, and I never print my work. That is not a marketing line. It is how I have worked for more than twenty-five years, and it shapes everything about what you take home.
What "single original" actually means
It means there is exactly one. One canvas, one wood panel, one surface that sat on my easel in Riverside while I built it layer by layer in oil. When that painting leaves my studio, there is no file to reprint, no edition waiting in a drawer, and no second version hanging in someone else's home.
Take Three Fishes — 48 by 48 inches, oil on wood panel. The thickness of the paint, the way the blues hold the gold, the texture you can see when light moves across it in the morning: that lives on that one panel. A photograph can show you the image, but it cannot give you the painting. If you own Three Fishes, you own the only one. No one else ever will.
Why I chose never to print
I understand why prints exist. They make an image affordable, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying an image. But a print changes the relationship. Once an image can be made again tomorrow, the painting stops being a moment in a painter's life and becomes a product.
Oil does not work that way for me. I mix color for that day, that light, that feeling. Sometimes a layer stays wet for days while I decide whether to push it further. Desert Sun carries the memory of desert light in warm golds. Blue Dream carries a different day — deep, quiet blues with light breaking through. I could copy the colors, but I could never recreate the decisions. A second version would be a copy of my own work, and I do not want to sell you a copy and call it the real thing.
The same is true for a smaller work like Golden Face, 24 by 30 inches. From across a room you see a golden face. Up close you see how the gold was laid on, where it is thick and where it lets the layers beneath it glow. That surface is the painting.
What this means if you collect my work
First, it means trust. When I tell you a painting is original, I can prove it — because there is nothing else to confuse it with. Every work comes signed, with its title, medium, size, and year, and a certificate of authenticity from me.
Second, it means your home holds something no other home holds. In a world where the same print hangs in a thousand living rooms, an original is personal. Guests ask about it, because it has a presence prints do not have. The Feet series is a good example: Foot in Sandal, Mosaic Foot, and Golden Foot are three paintings and one story about growth across thousands of years, from ancient Egypt to Michelangelo to my own foot today. There is one set. When it finds its home, that story lives there.
Third, it means patience matters. If a painting you love has sold, I cannot reprint it for you — but I can paint you something new, made for your wall, your light, and your colors. That is what a commission is: not a copy, but a new original, born from a conversation between us. Many collectors tell me that second path gave them something even better, because the painting was made with their room in mind from the first stroke.
A promise I intend to keep
I am a living artist, painting now, here in California. I answer collectors myself, I talk through size and color, and I stand behind every piece that carries my name. Keeping my work to single originals is part of that honesty. One painter, one painting, one collector — and the painting lives with you for years, the way it lived with me while I made it.
If you are looking for art that is truly one of a kind, that is what I offer — reasonable prices, no prints, no editions, no surprises.
Thinking about a painting for your home, or a new original made just for your space? Write to me at [email protected] — tell me what catches your eye and I will answer you myself.