New Work

New Mixed Media piece. Trojan Horse, 48" x 48", Mixed Media on Canvas

My Top 10 Inspirations

My Favorite Things. . .

1. Shanty Towns (stacked homes)

2. Indian Garlands: natural forms in general spark my interest: cells, flowers, pods, and trees. The shapes are fascinating.

3. Bower Bird Towers

4. Japanese patterns

5. Japanese prints: Like other artists before me (Van Gogh, Hundertwasser), I am inspired by the line quality and composition of Japanese prints.

6. Chaos : All of my paintings have a sense of ordered chaos. I stack shapes and colors to construct piles or towers. I find myself destroying canvases, rearranging, and creating new compositions, new microcosms.

7. Fairy Tales/ Faerie Tales and Folk Tales/Poetry

8. Hanging chandeliers, Posies: Any form that holds its fragile, yet elaborate, pieces together

9. Fabrics/papers/patterns: stripes are my current obsession

10. Architects with natural forms in mind: Hundertwasser, Antoni Gaudi, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Bower Birds

I'm convinced that I was a (male) Bower Bird in another life. Male bower birds build massive intricate towers from twigs and branches surrounded by a collection of random objects: cans, paper clips, seed pods, flowers, and anything shiny. The male bower birds use these structures not as a nest but as a courting space in which to woo a female. Who needs colorful plumage when you can decorate?

Check out the incredible spread from National Geographic (July 2010):

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/07/bowerbirds/morell-text

I will be working on a paper series of bower bird towers. Natural Structures.

Rathin Mitra

Line drawings of Mussoorie by Rathin Mitra

Zuzka Vaclavik

The UGA grad and artist Zuzka Vaclavik adds a refreshing twist to Modern Graffiti with her playful and complex landscapes of shapes and letters. It's pop art with a calming color palette.

An International artist, Vaclavik teaches and works in Italy, Costa Rica, and Germany. In her artist statement, she says: "In my new works I make post-graffiti, bio-morphic, automatic gestures. I want to create intimate new worlds of wonder where culturally familiar tags of decay mix with a micro/macro flip-flop, pulling the viewer into their world- tumbling from familiar references into other strange passages of bio science fictions. "

See more of her work at:

http://www.vaclart.com/Zuzka_Vaclavik/Zuzka_Vaclavik.html

Tall Totems

My newest painting - Part of my Totem series

Rooted 35" x 59" Acrylic on Canvas 2010

Queen Mary's Doll House

We all have secret obsessions of one kind or another. Mine just happens to be homes. . .very small homes. Doll houses.

Queen Mary's Dollhouse is a marvel in the world of miniature homes. It was built in the early 1920's (it took four years to complete) for Queen Mary as a present from her cousin Princess Marie Louise. The Princess recruited well-known artists and top craftsmen to add their expertise to the replica of Windsor Castle.

"It was made to a scale of 1:12 (one inch to the foot), is over three feet tall, and contains models of products of well known companies of the time. It is remarkable for its detail and the detail of the objects within it, many of which are 1/12th replicas of items in Windsor Castle. These were either made by the companies themselves, or by specialist modelmakers, such as Twining Models of Northampton, England. The carpets, curtains and furnishings are all copies of the real thing, and even the light fittings are working. The bathrooms are fully plumbed; that includes a flushable toilet and miniature lavatory paper." - thanks Wiki