I credit Billy with making it cool again to be a figurative painter. In NYC during the late 80s, When I was in art school, any work with a representational, narrative, symbolist, craft or overly decorative element was considered to be something less then what we were supposed to be striving to create. That attitude persisted in the years to follow. When I came to los Angeles a decade later, I discovered La Luz de Jesus and a whole group of people who embraced many of the approaches that had previously been shunned (and which, incidentally, I had gravitated towards) All of these were at last lent legitimacy, and though I had never stopped making what I loved , it was a real freedom not to have to explain myself. The art world, of all places, should have no absolutes