This painting, depicting cruising main street in small town America, is the cover of my book with co-author and my good friend Mike Witzel. The book is entitled CRUISIN', sub. titled: Car Culture In America. Published by (MBI) Motorbooks International in 1997. 

CRUISIN'  is a 160 pages of cruising history, hard bound, jam packed with photos and paintings that takes you from beginning to the present. CRUISIN' is a coffee table style book that is also great reading. It takes you from childhood influences to compulsive car nut, to Its origin and development as a social phenomenon and beyond. This is not a clinical study but a fun book that should bring back a lot of fond memories. 

CRUISIN' came about through my friendship with co-author Mike Witzel. We met some years back and became fast friends through our mutual interest in cars, roadside architecture and in our background in books.
Mike originally thought it might be a great Idea to do a book on my auto art. I recall thinking that this could lead to me being labeled as automobile artist instead of seeing the larger picture. The larger picture being that these paintings were a series, just one of many on a host of different topics. 

I suggested that perhaps we might do a book on what the paintings are about. Cruising, roadside architecture and the period. Over the next year or so, an Idea began to developed. A fun overview of a most American art form, Cruisin'. (oil on canvas 1996)