In 1974, I decided to enter my very first (and last) competitive show: The Third Colorado Annual at the Denver Art Museum. This was a big deal. The Denver Art Museum represented the best of the best for Western American art. I couldn't quite believe they accepted my beloved Cityscape, Darby Street.
The afternoon before the show, as I
was putting the finishing touches on Darby Street, I was as nervous as could be. Dusty late afternoon sunshine poured through the skylights. Popping the caps off a few cans of spray-on affixia, I started playing here and there, adding a bit of grime, a bit more texture. So I hit it there, then over there, then over there. "Oh man!" I told myself. "It's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful!" Sunlight shone through the windows with this amazing orange aura. Slowly, I began to I realize, "Wow, that is orange. I mean that is really orange!"
I looked down at the can in my hand. It was orange spray paint! My heart all but jumped right out of my chest. I flipped on every light in the loft. There in front of me - my beautiful Darby Street, the first Cityscape I had ever made, the one that was supposed to get on a truck the next morning to be exhibited at the Denver Art Museum - it was covered in orange paint!
Well, out came the lacquer, a solvent at the time. And I started cleaning. I was in a sheer panic, my pulse racing, my mind laser-focused on this single mistake. By midnight, I had cleaned off all the paint. Then I set to work repainting the whole scene from top to bottom. As the sun rose, I finally stepped back and realized that, for better or for worse, there was nothing left to do but walk away.
Once again, I had one of those life lessons: you can't run when the panic sets in. You've got to fix it, make it right, and in the end, make it better than you ever knew you could. So that's what I did. A couple of hours later, I packed it up and went to Denver.
Truth be told, I never expected the Denver Art Museum to accept my work. Not only did they accept my Cityscape, but they let me win the whole competition. Darby Street, with its first place blue ribbon and all, was put on exhibit at the Denver Art Museum.
The first time I walked into the Museum and saw my Cityscape on display, my heart soared. People were crowded around my piece, pointing and peeking, looking in the windows and all that. At one point, the museum stationed a guard whose job it was to keep saying, "Get your hands off that, little boy! Hey, don't touch that." It was a remarkable moment in my life. | 
