Brandon Jemeyson, of the skiffle group The Sutcliffes, and I had been making regular pilgrimages to Waller, Texas, in search of the enigmatic musician Daniel Johnston. Daniel and I had been friends back in Austin and I had wanted to include him in my new musical endeavors. I had been out of touch with Daniel for over ten years and it ended up taking a couple more years to actually track him down. He'd risen from his roots in Austin as the endearing alien child of the music scene to the status of international cult star like a stealth bomber sliding under the radio mainstream, propelled by his self recorded, self released, hand distributed cassette tapes. It appeared he had crash-landed again into another long bout of depression and had been living with his parents for the last five years. We initially found Daniel suffering greatly with his illness, unable to muster his immense creativity to contribute to my projects. After one of many visits to Waller, Brandon and I were pulling out of Daniel's driveway when he ran out of his house with a stack of his original drawings as a present. Daniel has always had a reputation of being much too generous with friends, and I realized as I pored over the two hundred some drawings at my studio in New York that he had been far too generous and I shouldn't have accepted the drawings. But there they were and I loved them. I wasn't sure what to do until fate intervened. My Dallas dealer flew in to look at some of my paintings for an upcoming exhibit. I showed him the Daniel drawings and he loved them, wondering aloud if there wasn't some way to work him into my show. It was decided I would create a series of paintings partially based on the drawings. I phoned Daniel with the proposition and he seemed puzzled but delighted. We decided he would try to attend the show and perform at the after party, although we both knew this was highly unlikely due to his frail condition. Two weeks before the show Daniel was committed to a mental institution. When I arrived in Dallas, I rang Daniel's parents to inquire about his condition. He was back home. The doctors had put him on new medication and Daniel was feeling better than he had in ten years. Brandon and I made the five-hour drive to Waller to get Daniel. Thanks to the new medication, he seemed like his old self again. The next day in Dallas Daniel rehearsed with the Sutcliffes, attended our art show, then played a set at the after party, hanging out until five in the morning. The show and the party were mobbed. Daniel was back. After that we successfully worked on several music projects and have had shows together around the country.