I am a fifty year old self-taught artist who has lived in Rhode Island my entire life. I have been making art since childhood, working in every available craft while growing up. I studied mechanical drawing and architecture at Tollgate High School and Community College of Rhode Island. I also took ceramic, weaving, and painting classes during this time. In 1998 I began to focus on my painting when I purchased a beach house in Riverside, RI near the old Crescent Amusement Park. That began a ten year rehab project to restore the house to a 1950’s to 1960’s retro look. I decorated the house with furniture and collectibles from the same era. I created amusement park themed pieces of art for every room. My house looks like a funhouse gift shop, crossed with Ripley’s “believe it or not” museum and a Christmas lighting display. The house is also my art studio and I spend all of my free time there painting with my constant companions Wanda and Lenny. They are spotted Mini Dachshunds who have larger than life personalities and insist on being my very involved art assistants. The dogs are not helpful of course, and spend most of their time covered in different colors of paint while chewing on my supplies but are a big part of my life. When I am painting I use all of these influences and my varied life experiences and let them run amok in my very active imagination, then combine them with my sense of humor and my love of color to create my art. Ricky Gagnon