I married my second wife in 1967. I had sporadically been carving curios part-time for a few years, but I wanted to understand traditional Northwest Coast Native Art. I felt that holding down a full-time job was hampering my ‘education’. I took a leave of absence from the steel construction company I was working for and tried to earn a living by selling what I thought was “traditional” stuff. There were two problems with this plan. One was that there was, as yet, no market for traditional Northwest Coast Native Art and the other was that I didn’t know anything. My stuff was pretty bad, by today's standards. It was fortuitous that around this time I discovered Bill Holm’s book, “Northwest Coast Indian Art, an Analysis of Form”. This got me headed in the right direction. For a few years I was able to eak out a living for a growing family, working an average of seventy hours per week, though it was a few years before I was doing quality work.

By the end of the decade the Northwest Coast Native Art “renaissance” had begun and by the early 70’s I was getting some pretty good commissions, but in 1976 I took a serious look at my work and decided that I really didn’t understand the art form and maybe I should get out of it. I had long been interested in traditional Norwegian small boats. Thinking that there might be a market for them in the U.S., I took a trip to Norway, where I took lines of a few lap-strake boats, as well as many photographs. I was ready to embark on a new career. However, on the way to Norway the plane stopped in London. My wife and I went to the British museum and then to the Tate where, as chance would have it, the Sacred Circles show was on exhibit. This was a traveling show in which a fantastic array of Native American art from all over this continent was on display, including a large number of well chosen Northwest coast pieces. I was totally captivated and inspired. I couldn’t wait to return home and launch myself onto a program of re-education, which I did.

I literally put everything that I thought I knew into the trash and emptied it. I began visiting museums and their store rooms. Bill Holm was generous enough to allow me to make copies of his vast collection of slides and I began a serious examination of old pieces, trying to relate works to particular Native artists from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I systematically worked in many regional and individual styles, just learning. The learning goes on and it’s always exciting.

Along with my ongoing education I have done a lot of teaching. I enjoy passing on what I have learned to others and hope they will do the same. This is world-class art and it needs to be perpetuated.