With friends like this

I’ve been thrilled with the early feedback on this website. Special credit has to go to my friend Laurie Skantzos, the artist who painted the background just for this site.

Laurie also finishes my custom studio cabinets with paintings and finishes that become objects of art themselves. She has been instrumental in my photography. The comfort and ease I felt working with Laurie on her promotional portraits turned a switch on in me that has changed my interactions and creativity as a photographer ever since. Overnight, I became a much better photographer. More relaxed, comfortable and easy-going with my subjects. More creative. More confident. More playful.

It was her beautiful paintings that 1st stirred my interest in abstract art (something I avoided whenever I could, before then). That is no small change of heart; my mind was closed!

I don’t think it’s in many lists of what a friend does but I’d like to add to my list that a friend helps change you, without consciously trying, to become a better person. Here’s some pictures of my good friend, Laurie Skantzos and some samples from her work:

If you love art, put on your favourite walking shoes and get yourself to Toronto this weekend for the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition at Nathan Philips Square (Fri July 11th – Sun July 13th, 2008 – rain or shine). This is Canada’s biggest outdoor art event, featuring over 500 artists of all mediums.

Laurie Skantzos will be featured there at booth 132 in the Pink section (it’s a corner booth near the pool).

Artist Locator Map for the show

laurieskantzos.com

I owe some thanks to dizzain.com in New York for taking my design and reproducing it down to every detail as a working wordpress site. This was a unique and difficult design to do with some big technical hurdles. I don’t think there’s many web developers out there with this level of wordpress design expertise. I’m so happy they pulled it off! My apologies to internet explorer users during some of these early days. I kept breaking the site in IE with sloppy code in my posts and then asking Nicole James at Dizzain if they were having problems! She was probably forming a Neanderthal brow ridge from rolling her eyes at my emails! Thanks for patiently pointing out my mistakes Nicole!