Illustrator John R. Neill's amazing illustrations for L. Frank Baum’s Oz books surely owe as much to Charles Dana Gibson and Joseph Clement Coll as to Alphonse Mucha, and they were my first brushes with Art Nouveau and still hold the power to amaze.
I have since traveled to the Czech Republic to see Mucha’s Slav Epic and his window at St. Vitus Cathedral, and studied the work of so many other brilliant practitioners - photographer Karl Blossfeldt, glass makers Lalique and Tiffany, architects Antonio Gaudi, Victor Horta, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and naturalist Ernst Haeckel. I strive to carry their inspiration with me in all my work.
I painted the first Literary Pin-up as a poster for "Moby Dick, the Musical” and was surprised by its popularity.
I followed it in 2012, with an entire calendar of classic authors for charity (Worldbuilders and Heifer International). 2013’s calendar included work with living authors (George R. R. Martin, Charlaine Harris, Ray Bradbury, et al.). 2014’s calendar benefited the Clarion Writer's Workshop and featured collaborations N.K. Jemisin, Kim Stanley Robinson and many others.
When I was a boy, Norman Rockwell’s paintings graced greeting cards, the covers of TV Guide, and even plates. I was a fan.
But Rockwell was himself a fan of the brilliant JC Leyendecker* whom he succeeded at The Saturday Evening Post. Though it had long been phased out by the time I was born, this Post design was the first one I really understood. It is an honor to get to play in Leyendecker and Rockwell's sandbox.*Leyendecker also created the Arrow Shirt Collar man, the red-clad Santa Claus, and the New Year’s baby.