Big Steve is standing in a bit of redwood forest. These early papier maches that I made when I first moved to San Jose and had to teach watercolors which I had never done before, were really big 3–D watercolors. I used poster paints that were available from the art department supply room.

I first made a crocodile by laying these strips of wheatpaste soaked newspaper over a shaped mound of earth in my backyard. You see, I didn't have a kiln and had no access to the kilns at SJSC. To do clay, I had to take my pieces back to Davis and fire them when there was an empty kiln. The first Christmas I fired some sweet puppies.

That first crocodile rotted quickly but this second one was built of plywood and chicken wire covered with the newspaper strips. Details were added with instant papier mache. It was great to have a big animal that was easy to carry around and could actually be hung from a wall. Clay is never that cooperative.

When I was off in Saskatchewan the crocodile was borrowed for an exhibition. They carried it roped to a top of a van. His death ensued.

Even in Saskatchewan after the two years at SJSC, I kept making the papier maches, this time in my basement. I had been hired to build a kiln of which I knew nothing and to teach. So again, no kiln, though I had brought a small one with me.

Mandrills and baboons along with the primates were my favorite monkey–animals. I visited the mandrill at the San Francisco Zoo so often that I developed a relationship with him. The fur was made with a quilted and layered packing paper called Kimpak. Details were added with instant papier mache.

One of two orangutans I made in my basement in Regina. This one wasn't a problem but to get the second one out of my basement we had to cut out the door frame. I hadn't thought to measure it before hand.

This first orangutan actually hangs on a metal branch. It was made in the backyard of a rented home on Alice St. in Davis while watching the first moon landing on television.

This San Jose mandrill, the papier maches posed so well in front of my pampas grass, traveled to many art shows but finally was abandoned in New York City when I couldn't come up with the money to have him returned from a show at The Alan Stone Gallery. I like to think he's still out there living in a New York apartment.

This first anteater, all the first pieces stood on their own bits of land, was smooth and much more paper–like than the later ones. This guy is a portrait of the anteater at the San Jose Zoo.

Named after the chairman of the art department and his wife in Regina, it was one of the gestures that got me replaced with a German filmmaker after two years there. Phyllis is scratching Ted's butt.

These unusual guys are posing in the snow outside my basement window in Regina. They seem puzzled.