Times have been tough lately.

I’m 64 years old now, and there just isn’t the same demand for wildlife paintings and woodcuts as there was when I was 25.  Income has been scarce and I’ve had some close calls with paying the bills.  Many times these past few months have I considered hanging myself in the garage, but I can’t work up the courage, so I sit and paint pathetic, morbid little pictures depicting death and suffering.  My daughter thinks I might actually be able to make more money selling those than my wildlife pictures but they are too private for anything like that.  They strike me as being a bit too modern, which goes against the principles I’ve always stood for with my paintings.  I started painting wildlife scenes because they are essentially timeless; a picture of two ducks swimming in a pond could be set in 1915 or 2013 without being explicitly modern or old.  I pledge allegiance to no period in time.  The only concession I’ve made to the modern age was hiring someone to make a website advertising my work.  My daughter posted the link all over the Internet, and there was a small spike in business for a little while, but eventually things settled back into a rut.

So imagine my surprise when a young man by the name of Chris Brown sent me an email asking me to paint the cover to his new album.  I had never heard of him before and immediately…