Although I grew up in  Edmonton, Alberta I left the province in 1967 at the age of 23 moving to Toronto where I lived until 1995 when I was country a professorship at Columbia University and then lived in NYC until 2007 thus most of my adult life was spent in large urban environments. I only started to paint at the Art Students League of NYC (ASL) in the late 1990s having been given a set of beginner art supplies by an appreciative house guest who was a cousin and a painter having attained a MFA at the University of Alberta, The very instant the brush with oil paint hit the tiny canvas board I was hooked for life. Having said that living in an extremely urban environment influenced in many ways what I chose to paint where my colourfield paintings were just that - colourfield paintings with little reference to abstract landscapes.