Art: Bryan Crow

Meet the artist

Artist Brian Crow loves to paint. He'd be doing it even if people weren't paying him for it, but thinks it's pretty sweet that they are. He just sold a painting to a person in New Jersey, who saw it on his Web site. His dream is to "just paint all the time," but it's hard for an artist even when the economy isn't in the tank; and he has a wife and 6-year-old son. (Sorry, ladies).

Having come to Tucson "to make a clean, fresh start in life," the Houston-born Crow is frank about his spotty past: "I was a drug addict, addicted to a variety of chemicals." He was homeless for four years, living out of a backpack, and he served more than a little time. Thanks to discovering art, he's completely straight and sober and meditates on Sundays with four other guys, "watching the out breath." "I'm a Buddhist," he says, and credits art with saving his life.

See about a dozen new Crow works at 801 Gallery before the group exhibit—"Why Art Now?"—closes on April 12.—Randy Harris, Metromix