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My artwork will be on display in the gallery through November 12, 2023.

The reception was a frightfully spooktacular affair. It was a graveyard smash! There were creepy couture connoisseurs, wickedly well-dressed witches, ghoulish glamour ghouls, and devilishly delightful devils. It was a hauntingly good time!

Chris Nordin and I saw the evening through to its scary end, entertaining and delighting the gallery’s guests with our art and wit.

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But now, I have a brand new style to add to the collection! Inspired by plants and plant pieces I love to see on my travels, these new Botanical Wall Art Tiles are a fabulously organic option for your groupings!

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Thank you to everyone who came to the festival to visit me. I saw some old friends, including a great client who traveled from Indianapolis to the show! I also met some new friends whom I look forward to working with more in the future.

The Crosby Festival of the Arts is an annual art festival held on the grounds of the Toledo Botanical Garden. Artists from around the region converge in a celebration of handmade arts of all varieties. My favorite part of this show is the location: spending the weekend surrounded by the incredible beauty of the botanical gardens, enjoying the scents and fresh air that come with being close to nature.

Visit the Crosby Festival website for a full list of 2022 award-winning artists.

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Here are some highlights from my time in Florida!

Gasparilla Festival of the Arts

AWARD of MERIT

This was the first year I presented at the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts. People were so impressed with my artwork that they bestowed me with an Award of Merit. They also hung my wall sculpture for display at this fancy VIP dinner. The artwork almost didn’t fit on the wall!

Desert Botanical

We had the distinct privilege of hanging my Desert Botanical along a metal stairway in this open concept great room in Tampa. With lots of natural light and plenty of open space, this was a perfect place to hang a metal wall sculpture. You can see it from almost anywhere in the space!

And there was art

Here are some photos from my booth and from some clients.

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Inspiration from Light and Color

Let me just say I love earth tones. My favorite colors are the colors in nature. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate a good electric neon green once in a while, but there’s something relaxing and grounding about the colors of earth.

Take this artwork, for example. I created this piece, “Scattered Boats,” drawing on bright but earthy shades of brown, orange, and tan. The mixed media artwork contains Leather elements provide a natural base representing earth and soil in this image. The brighter warm colors give me the feel and warmth of Arizona sun on desert rocks. The greens and blues bring to mind water, algae, and seaweed; and the textures of light and color in the patinated copper are like dappled sunlight filtering through the water and waves.

The natural elements that inspired this piece drive color choices and the use of light and shadow.

Rocks, Twigs, and Natural Shapes

By far my favorite nature inspired shape is round. Circular or spherical shapes in my artwork come from river rocks, eggs, or microscopic cells. Often I group circular shapes together to create cairns. Here are a few pieces that I created this way:

I love to bring shapes together into groups, or accumulations. One is never enough! Whether the accumulation is a cairn, a bundle, or a scattering, the accumulation brings repetition together with randomness—another natural element—to create an organic and dynamic flow to the artwork.

Here is another piece that is inspired by nature. In this wall sculpture I envision the accumulations to be bundles of twigs:

Art Inspired from Microscopic Structures

Some of my early inspiration came from looking at old medical illustrations and images created through microscopes. Cellular structures are various, and they can be beautiful or vulgar, or even both at the same time! One of my favorite wall sculptures is inspired by the shape of egg cells, or ootids, one of the earliest structures in the formation of a new living thing.

Other microscopic structures that give me inspiration include spirals, DNA, and virus molecules.

Negative Space in Nature

Some of the most interesting shapes, to me, come from the absence of a shape. Or the shapes in between the shapes. In fact, even in my studio negative space is a source of inspiration when I look at the shapes left over in the excess metal after cutting out other shapes. These “negative shapes” can inspire brand new shape elements that take on a texture and meaning of their own. Take a look at the following artwork, paying attention to the negative space, the forms in between the other pieces.

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I am attending the Old Town Springtime Art Festival again in 2022: May 14-15!

Here is a quick look at my booth from the beginning of the show. What a beautiful day! I love when the sun hits the aluminum just right.

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When Artwork is the Same Size

Grouping art pieces is more successful when the pieces are the same size. Although this is not necessary, it helps to make the grouping geometrically consistent. For pieces that are the same size, groupings can be created in a grid, or pieces can be staggered for a more creative presentation.

In the examples below, the pieces in the grouping are tied together by shape, size, and color.

When Artwork is of Different Sizes

With art pieces of different shapes or sizes, a successful grouping is still possible. Look for pieces that have other similar elements, like colors or patterns.

In my art, I often use common visual elements that tie pieces together so that they can be grouped effectively. This is especially true of my art tiles which are designed specifically for groupings.

Whenever you are considering artwork for a group hanging, look for common visual elements: colors, textures, patterns, or shapes. Remember that your grouping is not just multiple pieces of artwork next to each other; it is a unified presentation of art containing multiple independent elements.

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