“Art is like writing,” states visual artist Robert Franklin. “A picture speaks a thousand words – millions, billions, trillions, gazillions of words, all represented in one teeny-tiny micro dot on a piece of paper.” Originally born in Victoria, Texas in 1954, Franklin has been an OTR or On the Road man for most of his life, although he has settled down in Houston for the present. Franklin has been a primarily self-taught artist since childhood, although he has studied with great success under various established artists at several different art schools, and his imaginative work is as intricate as it is colorful. Much of Franklin’s art is the result of an emotional outlet. “When I’m in a nice mood,” he explains, “I create pictures of beauty. When I’m in a nasty mood,” he continues with a mischevious look in his eye, “I draw monsters. Sometimes they’re goofy-looking; sometimes they aren’t.” Franklin’s favored mediums of pen, ink, marker and pencil alternately produce abstract combinations of squiggles and lines as well as fantastical portraits, surreal still-life works and stylized sketches. When asked, Franklin says that his work could best be described as erratic. As a result, it’s no wonder that the free-thinking artist greatly prizes the variety of personal interpretation allowed for in interactions with his work. “It’s my freedom,” Franklin concludes. “It’s a way of communicating on a different level.”