Lennon had McCartney. Kerouac had Cassady. Bukowski had Cutty Sark. Me, I got The Shack. As muses go, it would turn out to be a strong one. I first met 14 Old Bolinas Road 23 years ago, when it was a plain, old, grey, run-of-the-mill cabin. Like a sketchy mutt rescue, I think I saw something in it that others chose to pass by. It did have decent bones: a big deck, vaulted ceilings, a sleeping loft and an open floor plan. But it also had a lot of lame features like rickety aluminum windows, chipboard kitchen shelves, stained beige carpets and damaged floors. I really liked the location more than anything. I’d taken to the town of Bolinas, California after several years of steadily surfing weekday sunrises, and spending weekends with my young family in a funky, inexpensive hotel there. They loved the town too. So in 2003, we cobbled our savings together and put a down payment on the cabin that we named The Shack — a humble weekend escape that would come to change our lives, mine in ways I could never have foreseen. It wasn’t a fiery relationship at first. We got off to an ordinary start. We were pretty broke after making the down payment, so my wife, Marianne, came up with the idea of decorating it ironically with inexpensive 70s No. 151 furniture. We had fun, finding a rare orange 8-track deck, round JVC TV set and Apollo orb phonograph. And the Shack seemed to silently tolerate our odd initial aesthetic overtures. But soon it seemed to start putting ideas into my head. Like, Why not paint the outside orange? “Why?” I silently asked. It quietly answered. “Because you were formed in the 70s. It was a weird decade. Orange was the color. It’s a weird color. Clockwork Orange is your favorite movie. It’s a weird movie. So own it. Don’t be a chickenshit. Paint it orange.” So that’s really how we began our true creative partnership, right there. The Shack wasn’t just an enabler, it was a provoker, a needler, and at times — an ass kicker. In fact, it was the Shack that first convinced me to become an artist. Before our meeting, I had renovated houses, designed and built cabinetry and furniture, and was a creative director in my own advertising firm. But I had yet to truly pick up an artist brush. “What are you going to put on the walls?” the Shack seemed to be nudging me. I had to admit, it had me in a tough spot. The walls were bare, and so was our savings account. The Shack even provided me with my introductory art education — the comic
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