Growing up in Southern California, "I drew as long as I've been alive." But it took him a while to get into art. "I did one painting on my own in high school, and it was horrible. I didn't discover oils until I was a sophomore at BYU."

When he gives lectures to students, "they always want to know what my five-year plan was. The truth is, I didn't engineer any of this. I didn't know who Greenwich Workshop was when they called and asked if they could make prints of my work."

But there's a bit more involved. "That sounds like opportunities just fell into my lap, and some did. But I don't believe in blind luck. I think you have to work hard, do your best, constantly try to improve and give every project 100 percent. It follows that the harder you work, the luckier you get." Still, he says, "you do have to be in the right place and have the right things to say."

For Christensen, the things he says have always bordered on the magical. He's commonly called a fantasy artist, but he sees himself, rather, as an artist who paints the fantastic. "That's actually a 17th-century term, like the work of Hieronymus Bosch. I paint things that are not real. But fantasy often ventures into the dark and scary stuff. I made a decision long ago that I would not go to dark places. There's a lot of negativity in the world. I try not to be part of it."

His paintings are filled with symbolism. "There are many layers of meaning in my work, and I love to play with themes and metaphors."

If our lives are like rivers, he says, then boats are a good place for things to happen. He also often uses fish. If you are fully dressed and a fish is there, "it means you are somewhere else, a magical place. I like to juxtapose things that you might not think would go together. I get a kick out of putting in a lot of symbols and letting people find out what they are."

He wants his paintings to be "a point of departure. I don't demand that the viewer finds out what I'm trying to say. If they have different ideas, I say 'hooray.' Sometimes I like theirs better; sometimes I steal those."

He does want people to use their imaginations. "We all have that ability to think creatively, but I don't think we use it enough."

He also tries to "connect with common themes, the issues that people have to deal with — the burdens of a responsible man." Ideas, he says, are all around us, all a part of life. "I try to explore them in a unique way. Most times it's a fun way, sometimes it's a touching way. But this is stuff we all go through."

If his paintings often have a spiritual side, that, too, is natural. "Every authentic artist paints who he is. My religion, my spiritual belief system permeate my life and my artwork."