Growing up in the rural Midwest, sushi was an exotic – almost mythical – food to me.  It was rarely heard of and never seen.

My first direct experience of it came during my freshman year in college, when my roommate organized a visit to New York City for me and two other friends.

We stayed with his uncle – an architect who had designed many of the city’s sushi restaurants.

One night he took us on a tour of four of those restaurants – all beautiful – where we were treated as guests of honor and given the best the houses had to offer.

Sadly, my young taste buds did not appreciate the experience as much as they should have, but my young eyes immediately grasped the stunning visual poetry of this grand culinary tradition.

When I began painting a dozen years later, I remembered that experience often, and started exploring the subject in some of my earliest works.

And of course I have learned to delight in sushi, and enjoy it as often as I can.

I have painted many other things, but I have returned to painting sushi over and over.

Here are a few of those paintings.