Overview

The year is 1957. Four-year-old Paul Ecke sits timidly at a foreign kitchen table, eating the first inferior meal of many in a foster home. Longing for his beloved mother, he sees her only on short weekend visits that grow more infrequent over time, as she tries unsuccessfully to hide a nervous breakdown, along with yet another growing pregnancy. Struggling to endure the strict rules of the house and the coldness of his foster parents, Paul begins to live in his creative mind where everything is possible and the grandest of dreams take flight. But after his family reunites, the adults he relies on both crumble and harm, as improprieties occur and secrets are slowly revealed that add more layers to the complexity of a visibly sensitive boy's view of the world. Despite--or perhaps because of--the emotional angst, complicated sexual identity issues, and deep loss he experiences, Paul cultivates a profound gift of creative genius. Vibrant with candor and resonant with details of coming of age in '60s and '70s California, as well as of bravely thriving for a decade with cancer, Boy Dreamer is a moving and ultimately triumphant story of a man who discovers his truth and courageously lives it, in a life brimming with love, art, gratitude, and beauty.

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9781732329218

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Paul Ecke, a former educator, has been a professional artist for over three decades. He is a painter of contemporary non-figurative and figurative works on canvas and panel. His works are an amalgam of color, texture, and movement achieved through application of oil and acrylic paints to canvas, all applied by brush, hand, and even trowel. The results are colorful thought- and emotion-provoking images that convey the inner strength, conviction, and complexity of the artist. After pursuing a career teaching art in the California public school system, he headed the entire district's art program. Ecke enjoyed his nine years as an educator but longed to pursue a full-time career in the creation of his own art. Ecke has been a full-time contributor to the contemporary art world since 1985. His works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manila, Philippines, and the Daytona, Florida's Museum of Arts and Science. He has shown in galleries in New York, Chicago, San Diego, Palm Springs, Florida, the Philippines, and Indonesia. His works are in many private and corporate collections, including those of Universal Studios, Jimmy Z Sportswear, Taco Bell, Flojet Corporation, Carsey Warner Productions, and Dionne Warwick's collection. Works by Paul Ecke are already slated to be part of an endowment of contemporary paintings and graphic art to the Tate Museum of Contemporary Art in London. He has been the featured artist in numerous publications, including: Los Angeles Times, International Fine Art Collector Magazine, Space Magazine, and California Homes and Gardens. He was educated at California State University, Fullerton, receiving degrees in art with an emphasis in ceramic arts and painting.

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