It just occurred to me that long before I had begun these paintings, the cowboys began as simply needing figures to go in to these architectural fantasies that I had going on in sketchbooks, backs of receipts, comment cards, and napkins. I would draw these one point perspective chapels with bridges and moats and landscapes and plunk some dueling cowboys in them. Sometimes a samurai if I were feeling particularly cheeky. That struck me as hilarious. So hilarious in fact that it would take me another five years to actually paint one.
