Portrait of an Artist: Geoff Wynne / Digital photo images

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Age: 58

Residence: Sonora

Daily job: Cat trainer and Web site development for Dave Wilson Nursery

Geoff Wynne - Geoff Wynne

Family: My woman is a creator, a mover and shaker. She is single-handedly trying to change the world through art. We like to go for heavy weather walks, especially at night in the thick of a storm or under an ice-cold starry sky. My daughter is enjoying her first year in culinary school, which gives us the excuse to visit Portland, which is a great city for art, music and green living. My mom is brilliant and beautiful still. She is a self-taught computer geek and knows more about technology than most people half her age.

Background: I grew up living close to the land, and watching trees grow. Grew up in Modesto, working at our family nursery, where I still work today. Some of the people at work have known me my whole life, and I, them. I am shaped by my family's deep Stanislaus County roots. My early morning experiences are listening to tractors. My nights were spent taking walks through orchards. When I was a child, my mother danced with me in the kitchen. I'm sure that experience pushed me onto the path of music, poetry, literature and art. She took my sister and me to museums and made sure we knew world history and literature. She learned to cook ethnic foods. She taught us to question, to learn. Our father taught us to work. But he also gave us opportunities to travel the world, to hike the Sierra, to spend summers in Columbia with our grandmother. He made sure we both learned Spanish. As a teen, I loved working with the farm crews in the fields, listening to stories and singing in the fields with the crew. I attended Downey High School, class of 1968. I attended lots of colleges, though never quite finished at any of them, but I learned to love living in college towns!

Arts experience: I am self-taught, curious and near-sighted, plus I've been lucky to have nifty software. I have fond memories of air, music, weather that have influenced how I view the world. I am content to find subject matter in my own back yard. I play my guitar every day, reworking songs that I've written.

Advice for young artists: Find your art form. Pursue it. Do art for art's sake. Spend more time playing music than talking. Read and read a lot.

Favorite music/art/performance: Wide spectrum of music from all over the world. Particularly fond of tribal music, and a big fan of the Strawberry Music Festival. I play my guitar every day.

Life plans: To live each day in honesty, peace and free from hypocrisy. To do no harm. To stay alert and curious. To live "off the grid" and grow our own vegetables and fruit. To raise chickens.

How do you reach people unfamiliar with the arts? I give them a marble, and invite them to look.

What would surprise people about your art? Everything. I surprise myself all the time!