Strap on your lederhosen, strike up the accordion, and say hello to Todd Gutmann. That’s GOOTman. German for “brave one”. Goes all the way back to Todd’s great-great-great uncle, Klink Gutmann, who was known throughout Stuttgart for wearing polska kielbasa around his neck to fend off evil spirits.

Todd, German for Todd, dons no such meat jewelry but is every bit as creative and brave.

Todd layers his paintings like someone with ADD.  He finds recycled elements to build a structure through a random series of smudges, globs and goo that become more connected to one another. He works in sprays, washes, heavy restoral strokes, caked on paint on the palette knife. It feels like there is little distinction between where he leaves off and what the painting truly means.

Todd doesn’t need to wear no stinking sausage around his neck. He’s much too active for evil spirits to keep up with him.

Todd has driven to the top of Pike’s Peak in a Karmin Ghia, does a crossword puzzle nearly every day and has a puggle. He works with home depot isle 37 materials like tar, sheetrock paste and residue from roofing patches. He was born in Iowa. He hitchhiked in his teens half way across America. He speaks no foreign languages. He has broken his nose twice.

When what you do for a living is think of ways to promote, sell or communicate, it becomes remarkably difficult to describe yourself on a professional level.

So he won’t.

First off, he is married to his beautiful wife Amy, and they have two cool little boys, um, er, big boys of 18 and 20 (good guys). They live In a small house in Dallas (basically Richardson), and would never have guessed it. He paints and does stairmaster but not at the same time. He likes making things, including peanut butter (crunchy) and tuna fish sandwiches.

That’s all for now.

“It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech” – Mark Twain