FOLK ART and my home town, San Antonio, go hand-in-hand.

Our beautiful city is graced by extraordinary Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art, an exciting new wing of the San Antonio Museum of Art. The collections span four thousand years of Latin American history and art, and include important gifts from the Nelson A. Rockefeller and Robert K. Winn collections of Mexican Folk Art. Its unique architecture in a redesigned brewery by the San Antonio River makes it a one-of-a-kind treasure.
My personal interest in folk art began to develop seriously with one of my favorite graphic arts projects. Several years ago, I was asked by Corona Publishing Company to design and illustrate a coloring book on the folk art of Mexico. Dr. Marion Oettinger, who wrote the book's introduction and is head curator at the Center, allowed me to photograph pieces from the collections to draw and include in the book. Coloring the Folk Art of Mexico has been republished with a new cover to coincide with the recent opening of the Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art.

If you would like to print out and color an amusing folk art figure from the book, click here for the DEVIL BIKER. Coloring the Folk Art of Mexico can be ordered on-line, or directly from the publisher:

  • Corona Publishing Company
  • P.O. Drawer 12407
  • San Antonio, Texas 78212 

We particularly like Mexican folk art that is related to the Day of the Dead. There is something about the macabre humor mixed with reverence that appeals to me. Some people have skeletons in their closet - we have skeletons on our piano, where our favorite pieces reside. My students like to use these fascinating figures and images in their work - last year, they constructed a Day of the Dead altar in the art and computer classroom.
FINE ARTS and COLLAGES

My own paintings are influenced by both the East and the West. I am represented by the Nueva Street Gallery in San Antonio. My signature pieces are the large-scale origami kimono collages that are in collections and businesses around the region and the country. The largest kimonos I've done are in the lobby of a bank in New Braunfels, Texas.

For a look at some of my smaller collage work and information on a good paper supplier, click here. You can also see some of my handmade journals on this page.

Recently, I tried something new when a client commissioned me to paint a mural for her young daughter's room. It was a large project, about 9 by 18 feet, and it was challenging since the house was under construction and there was no water other than what I could carry up to the second floor in a bucket. But we agreed on a sketch of a country garden. Here is the sketch, and here is the finished mural.

When you visit San Antonio, please check out the seven paintings (see this example) in the Marriot Riverwalk's Lobby Bar - they are a series of Southwestern collages that I did for the opening of the hotel in 1987.

The San Antonio Art League has links to many of the arts and cultural organizations in the city as well as information on individual artists and exhibitions.

I look forward to having more time to paint and construct art pieces in my studio. For information on any of my artwork or the San Antonio art scene in general, please e-mail me.
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