BUG 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. I was en- couraged to make more. 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 been forgotten. 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 crea- tures styled with antique textile patterns that made them striking. As a child, I was a stamp collector. Collecting stamps naturally led to organizing my art, eventually becoming The Catalog Raisonné of my work. It is a collection of every 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 achieve- ment, 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. Recog- nizing the unique potential of the bugs, she proposed a solo show. At the time, I was mastering vector draw- ing on the iPad Pro. Vectors allow me to create scal- able, high-quality images, perfect to fill up large spac- es. The iPad gave me the freedom to do this anywhere. December of 2022, I flooded Mills Gallery in Orlan- do with a series of large-format prints of giant bugs. On the show’s final day, Zach Zacharias, senior cura- tor of The Museum of Arts and Sciences (MOAS ), in Daytona, Florida, was captivated by my work. His en- thusiasm led to a relationship with the museum and the opportunity 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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