Tom Gardner (Mot) was born in Santa Monica, California, on February 9, 1963, at 1:08 am. Being born with a penchant to draw, he was enrolled in painting classes at the L.A. County Museum of Art and the New York Metropolitan Summer Programmes, in 1968. His main course of study was da Vinci and other Renaissance masters. By the early 1970s, he was already illustrating textbooks for his school district. In 1980 he had completed advertising and design classes at the Southern California Regional Occupation Centre and because of a homelessness issue… had decided to build and live in a treehouse. (It was nice). There he drew many of his early cartoons for a series that featured in the weekly paper, The Easy Reader, in Hermosa Beach, CA. These continued for the first six years of the 1980s. That cartoon was called ‘MOT’. 20 years later, after a musical career, he returns to oil painting. After performing shows in LA, Tom moves to Marin in 2002, to paint. He finds a new light in Marin. Painting many iconic places… ’to preserve their memory.’ He began making signs, murals and toys…… and more paintings. His work can be seen all over Marin, especially in Fairfax, where lives and works today. Still playing music, painting pictures, and creating whatever needs creating.