My name is John and I am a native of Jacksonville, FL born in 1966. I was valedictorian of my high school and received a scholarship to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I had planned on being a physicist. As a student there, I began to have strange experiences, and I was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. I left school and traveled around the country. I began painting when I was 18 and hospitalized at the state hospital in McClenny, FL. Since then, I have taken art classes at many different places including Hillsborough Community College and University of South Florida. My art helps restore a sense of meaning and sanity to my life. After several years, I returned to school at the University of South Florida and graduated with a master's degree in physics in 1990. Practicing art at Project Return for over 30 years, I feel accomplished in my skills of landscapes and figure drawing.