Mike Cowles

Michael Cowles was born, without presumption or fanfare, in the quaint Midwestern town of Omaha, Nebraska. There and thence building upon foundations of passion and compassion he developed a style of presentment and a life-way of color, and embarked, thereby and throughwith, on an internal journey touching on the inspiration of those and that which came before him. Then he dropped out of college, and worked in a gas station until he gave up and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. As a soldier and artist he found expression for rarer paradigms, as he tread the dust and sand of foreign shores, mixing the aether of his craft and kraft with that of those pained spirits attracted to him. With a tear in his eye and a smile on his face, he would often say, "A pedibus usque ad caput." Then he hurt his knee, gained some weight and worked behind a desk for the rest of his enlistment, skipping out of work frequently to sneak into nearby theaters for matinée movies. Michael's hand desired the touch of the pen, and not the sword, so when his term of service to his country had passed, he plunged, once more, as Manos, into the fickle hands of fate. Then he moved to Austin.