[2] A sensitivity to the beauty of nature, learned while hiking and surfing in this rural suburb of Los Angeles, has been a great influence on Marin's work,[3] as have trips taken in his youth to countries like France, Switzerland, Greece and India.

He worked at the university's literary journal Sequoia, edited by fellow student Dana Gioia, who later served as a chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

His poems often connect daily minutiae to existential dilemmas, as in The Problem with Oxnard, which he wrote from the perspective of Chicano farm workers.

Using traditional canvases—as well as the fronts of postcards, hotel stationery and small pieces of paper—Marin paints with acrylic pens to produce contemporary, multi-colored abstracts, portraits, and landscapes.

[2] He cites as influences artists who "address the fragmentedness of modern existence," such Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, David Hockney, Jean-Michel Basquiat and, most notably, Paul Klee.