BEGINNINGS
From Sketches to Museum Showcase: Shoosty Bugs, An Art Infestation In 2007, a quick sketch of a bug ignited a creative spark. Recovering from injury, I was in a silly mood and made a simple watercolor of a beetle. Louis Pasteur, the discoverer of penicillin, said: Chance favors the prepared mind. I agree. By this time, I had been painting for almost 50 years. If it wasn’t for my training that tiny sketch would have gone the way of obscurity. Instead, I made a few more and built a series. They were loose sketches. What made them different was the use of patterns painted into their bodies. It is the combination of these realistic creatures styled with patterns that made them striking. I was encouraged to make more. As a child, I was a stamp collector. Collecting stamps naturally led to organizing my art, eventually becoming The Shoosty Catalog Raisonné. A collection of ev- ery piece I have ever made. Flipping through these books is like entering a time machine. It starts with the crayon drawings I made at age 7 in 1965 and currently spans 65 years to 2023. So far, it is three volumes and 1,600 pages. I make a lot of art. I do not know of any other living artist who has taken the time to document all of it. It is a remarkable achievement and has become an invaluable resource that has proven instrumental in attracting the attention of key figures in the art world. In 2022, acting as curator, Jennifer McInnes Coolidge propelled my work into the spotlight. Recognizing the unique potential of the bugs, she proposed a solo show. At the time, I was mastering vector drawing on the iPad Pro. Vectors allow me to create scalable, high-quality images, perfect to fill up large spaces. December of 2022, I flooded Mills Gallery in Orlando with a series of large-for- mat prints of giant bugs. On the show’s final day, Zach Zacharias, senior curator at The Museum of Arts and Sciences (MOAS), in Daytona, Florida, was captivated by my work. His enthusiasm led to a relationship with the museum and the op- portunity of a lifetime, Shoosty Bugs, An Art Infestation, April 5th, 2025 - Jan. 4th, 2026.
Shoosty 2007
Royal Goliathus Beetle Stamp 2023
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