Naaah, I'll pass you a plate of nice tomato slices with mozzarella cheese and basil.

Wyland came from my area, just a surf bum livng in a van. He started doing airbrush stuff, and was in the right place at the right time. Did a Mural known as "The Whaling Wall" in Laguna Beach, it met with resistance, and he finally got enough support to do it, while not making friends with the city (or its uber stringent "Design Review Board" ). Of course that was all used as marketing in his developing career, as if he was some bigtime naturalist that spoke for the whales. He's basically made this soft spot of a subject amongst the general public (*cough* PT Barnum *cough*) his very lucrative career, and as a career artist AND a human being, I can't besmirch him that at all....but, being in the same town (Laguna Beach is a place I always considered a cross between Twin Peaks and Mayberry), the Wyland success machine became its own ugly monster, with worshipping and adulating fans, and a super ego that went unchecked. It's really none of my business, something I practiced very hard at when I was in town and had my studio....the business of art is as cutthroat as any other, and I made a few friends in it, enough to have connects when I go back into full swing (after being gone for almost 10 years; mind you, I'm no household name, but I was successful ---on paper, anyways---- and have a few hundred originals out there, and people wanting to buy/sell my stuff again, if I just get my ass moving! ) The problem with art as a business is that it becomes just that, business first, art second.