Since 1995, after studying art education at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana, I have spent almost two decades creating art for homes, businesses, hotels and restaurants. I have enjoyed many summers of travel throughout the Midwest to display and sell my artwork at fine art fairs and galleries.

Though stained glass and mosaics have been my focus for many of these years, the solder lines or grout seams that are inherent in stained glass production often compete with my original abstract designs. This has led to an exciting and necessary evolution, whereby I transfer my designs onto solid wood panels using a wood burning tool (also known as pyrography). To complete my unique process, I apply the rich and velvety color of Prismacolor pencils. The effect is brilliant! The color is very bold, and the beauty of the wood grain is greatly enhanced.

My inspiration is limitless. I see potential designs in arbitrary places, like cracks in the sidewalk or a splash of red wine on a white tablecloth. Nature is an eternal source of inspiration, and I often take design cues from interesting accidents, such as the pattern of tree branches woven together in a silhouette, or the amazing organic flow of hundreds of starlings bound together in flight (known as murmuration). It’s tempting to conjure up a fancy story about why I create the kind of art I do, but I simply love to draw shapes, forms and lines that are pleasing to my eye, and hope it’s pleasing to the beholder as well.

And because I'm always evolving, in 2014 I developed a new line of artwork. I create original freehand drawings with Micron pens and Faber-Castell markers. These are NOT prints! Each drawing is totally unique. I don't use any patterns or rulers. I just sit down, put pen to paper and wait for the abstract image to appear!

A few relevant, possibly interesting tidbits about me:

I live in Nashville, Indiana, in a house I built with my dad. I love to listen to books on CD as I work in my studio and daydream about becoming as famous as Picasso or Andy Warhol. My favorite artists are Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper. I love poetry, but only the good stuff that isn’t so abstract I can’t understand it. Abstraction better lends itself to visual art, I think. Stephen Dunn is my favorite poet. He’s said just about anything that can be said about the inner workings of the heart and mind. My favorite novel is Atonement by Ian McEwan. My all time favorite band is The Cure. I love science, and anything that relates to how the mind works. I don’t believe in the supernatural. If I could meet anyone in the world, it would be the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. If you don’t buy my art, buy one of his books. It will change your life, or it will really upset you – one of the two! My favorite thing to do is go hiking and camping. My favorite food is so common, I’ll keep you in suspense (It starts with a P). I prefer chocolate to vanilla. Green is my favorite color. I have an aversion to planning or scheduling of any kind, and I live for spontaneous adventures! Telephone conversations make me anxious, and I avoid them at almost all cost. I had a happy childhood. I’m having a pretty fantastic adulthood. I have every intention of seeing my 100th birthday, after which I will happily relinquish my guts to the future of medicine.

Cheers! ~DeMaris