I started making art around the time the Internet was invented (not that I knew).

Made my first drawings during the summer of 1969. Since then I've been drawing from life, out in the world.

I took my first art course at UC Davis in 1973 from John FitzGibbon. I studied with Wayne Thiebaud, David Gilhooly, Cornelia Schulz, Manuel Neri and Roland Peterson at Davis, and with Joan Brown, Elmer Bischoff and Sylvia Lark at UC Berkeley (1976-78).

I was a courtroom artist from 1977-80 in San Francisco and Oakland. I covered some interesting trials as a freelancer for United Press International and various Bay Area papers, including the Daily Californian and the Bay Guardian. I drew Huey Newton, the Chowchilla Bus Kidnappers, and Bill and Emily Harris (confessed kidnappers of Patty Hearst).

I also drew at Dan White's trial. Dan White killed George Moscone, the Mayor of San Francisco, and Harvey Milk, San Francisco's first openly gay supervisor.

I was at the San Francisco Opera House attending a PDQ Bach concert as the White Night Riot erupted outside in the Civic Center in response to the manslaughter verdict delivered by the jury earlier that day.

At one hearing I drew Larry Layton, who was associated with the People's Temple, the cult that was massacred in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978.

It was a wild time to be in San Francisco.

I after graduating from UC Berkeley, I got my Certified Flight Instructor's certificate at Sierra Academy of Aeronautics in Oakland, California. I taught private, commercial and instrument courses on the ground and in-flight until 1982. I designed and produced a series of instructional slideshows and reports on local aeronautical facilities for Sierra.

In 1982, I joined computer graphics pioneer Via Video, "the picture processing company." I moved to New York City where I worked in marketing, training and sales until 1986.

ViaVideo competed with NYIT's Computer Graphics Lab's Images system, Artronics' Artron (Artronics was acquired by Genigraphics in 1987), and Lightspeed (whose roots were in MIT's Visible Language Workshop).

My boss, Elaine Genovese, a pioneer of computer graphics in advertising, developed the Rose Demo. Sean Johnson used AniPaint to create Bob, a character whose eyes, nose and mouth could be moved by a few strokes of the pen. We used the Rose Demo and Bob time after time as we demonstrated and sold the $45,000 System One to Avon, Colgate Palmolive, Revlon, Woolworths, Young & Rubicam, Penn State University, Parker Brothers and others.

I created, managed and taught Via's first-ever Nationwide Training Seminar curriculum for designers and artists who didn't otherwise have access to computer graphics systems. I also trained each of Via's clients in the northeast and southeast.

My friend and colleague at Via Video, special projects manager Al Barris, conceived and developed the first Pantone color system for computer generated graphics for the graphic arts industry. With Al's direction, Via Video became Pantone's first computer licensee for the graphic arts industry. After the Via Video System Two's debut in the Pantone booth at Print 85 in Chicago, Richard Herbert, Pantone's VP of computer graphics, and I created Pantone's first-ever computer-video palettes, working late into the night in Via's Madison Avenue headquarters.

In January 1984, my friend Pamela Duffy, a colleague from the UC Davis Art Department, was on assignment for the Village Voice to photograph Apple's new Macintosh computer. She photographed me in a computer store in Manhattan taking the Mac and IBM's PC Junior (remember that?) for a test drive.

The first (and last) illustration I created on the PCjr appeared in the first (and last) issue of Peanut Magazine.

Via was renamed Via Visuals, acquired by Dupont and renamed again as DuPont Design Technologies.

On a side note, an entirely new company recycled the Via Video name. It was funded by Brentwood Associates, one of the same VC firms that backed the original Via. The Via Video name went away (for the second time) in January 1998. The second Via is now Polycom, Inc.'s Videoconferencing Division.

In 1986, I joined Networked Picture Systems in Santa Clara, California. NPS was founded by Brian Job, the founder of Via Video.

At the same time, I began 10 years of involvement with computer conferencing pioneer Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (the WeLL) when I began hosting its Computer Graphics conference. (In 1991 I created the WeLL's Bay Area Tonight and Genealogy conferences).

I dreamed up the name Telenaut in August 1987 when I started Telenaut BBS, a Bulletin Board System focused on computer graphics. I ran it until 1991 on a 6-Mhz Televideo TeleCAT 286.

In October 1987, I joined OEM software developer Island Graphics Corporation to manage Island's Public Relations and other marketing programs. Island developed Targa TIPS for Truevision and SunWrite, Draw & Paint for Sun Microsystems. I set up and managed Island's forum on America Online.

I left Island in March 1994. That was also the month I was first exposed to the Web.

In mid-1994, I was hired as Executive Vice President of Electronic Pen in San Mateo by ex-Via Video designer Sandy Dhuyvetter and Via founder Brian Job. I managed marketing, sales and strategic planning for EP's "Webcats" Web Services Division, which I named. In 1996, Electronic Pen was acquired by CommerceWave of San Diego, which was acquired by iXL.

In late 1994, I joined (and named) Internezzo Technologies, Inc., a venture founded by ex-Islander and founder of Z-Code Software, Dan Heller. Internezzo had the rights to market and sell videoconferencing software from Silicon Graphics, and was planning to launch a line of Internet Cafés. I was involved with strategic planning and design of web projects for Apple Computer and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

I left Internezzo to found Telenaut in 1995.

If you have any questions or comments for me, please write to me care of david@telenaut.com

Thank you.