The following story is courtesy of Ben Johnson from Silive.com:

Critics, it's time to shake in your platform boots. Rock 'n' roll's Starchild doesn't put on his leather or smear his palette to impress you.

"I don't live by anybody else's sense of what my boundaries should be, or what their expectations or limitations might be, so whether it was doing Phantom Of The Opera or painting, or KISS, it's all things that I look at and find appealing," says KISS guitarist Paul Stanley, who will make special appearances with his paintings at two galleries in New Jersey this weekend. "What the art world thinks honestly has no more impact on me than what the music world thinks. It's what the people think."

Stanley's populism needs little defense. The 57-year-old artist's brightly colored oil paintings, simply constructed and heavily textured with brushes, fingers and the palette knife, are automatically collectable ($3 million in sales last year) because an international rock star painted them.

And this particular international rock star, a New York City original born to Jewish immigrant parents, may have learned part of his mantra concerning other people's opinions on Staten Island.

"I used to take the ferry - it was a cheap date, like taking a low-cost ocean cruise," says the rock star, laughing. "I also had a girlfriend of sorts in Staten Island. Her mom was very nice to me, until one day I wasn't allowed in the house. I found out it was because she hadn't known I was Jewish - she thought I was Italian."

Read the entire story here.