Alex Koleszar is an artist in Los Angeles who works primarily with oil on canvas. He has had exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and in Florence, Italy at the Biennale. Prior to his change in careers to create art, Mr. Koleszar owned a small business that focused on systems development, Information Design Resources. His clients included ARCO Marine, the Los Angeles Times, Pennzoil Motor Oil Company, Hawaiian Electric, and numerous other mid-size companies.

His work enabled these companies to successfully implement organization-wide systems in accounting, order-entry, sales, collections, oil transfer and crude oil production operations, and customer file maintenance. He started the company in 1986, after graduating with honors from USC's MBA program. Mr. Koleszar holds two additional degrees, a Bachelor of Science in Production Operations from Arizona State University, and a Bachelor of Science in Geosciences from University of Arizona.

In 1979, Russell Scott Hitt graduated from the University of Arizona - a scholastic stint paid for in part by his father. During medical school on the same campus, he began frequenting the gay bar scene, where he met his partner, Alex Koleszar.

The two have been together 14 years, moving in the late '80s to Los Angeles for Hitt's residency. in 1990, on a tour of the Sistine Chapel, Hitt turned suddenly to his lover and said, "Will you marry me?"

The answer was yes.

"I was so happy," recalls Koleszar, a painter and computer consultant. "It couldn't have been more romantic. I was waiting for the lightning bolt to strike."

They lived together up to Hitt death in 2007.