Biography

ABOUT THE ARTIST

My creative passion manifested itself first within the art of teaching. While earning my Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Education and additional graduate studies in American Literature (Southern Illinois University-Carbondale), I enrolled in a course emphasizing photography as a means of interpreting literature, a catalyst for publishing subsequent journal articles comparing writing to visual artistic processes, some of which can be found at ERIC clearinghouse, VMiholic at ERIC and which birthed an avocational interest in photography, culminating in offering a basic black and white course for an Elder Hostel program while also teaching college English in Arizona. I moved to Louisiana in 1995 to teach writing in an award-winning Developmental Education Program at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. In 1998, I moved to Lafayette/New Iberia after accepting a position as founding Dean of Developmental Education and Dean of Arts and Sciences at South Louisiana Community College and later taught pedagogy methods and diversity education courses for three years at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. Finally, these experiences led to joining the State of Louisiana Division of Administration, highlighted by creative endeavors where I designed and delivered leadership and employee engagement training, culminating in the development of a Taxonomy of Engagement which can be found among related articles published by the Association of Talent Development, Miholic@TD. 

In the mid-1970s, in my 20s, surviving as a visual artist did not seem a viable option, nor did support mechanisms or background experiences cultivate a pathway. While visual art was an early passion, the viability of earning a living was not a realistic option. A few years after completing a college art design course, I ran into my instructor, Reggie Coleman, who inquired, “Are you still painting?” While I did execute a few wall murals, I replied, “Does painting houses count?” (House painting was one of my means of paying for undergraduate studies.) He apparently credited brush strokes by enthusiastically responding, “Yes.” He didn’t realize how a brief meeting and a simple affirmation would continue to fuel my artistic passion and a gradual, progressive, “carving out” of an expressive niche:

§   Early photographic compositions dating back to the mid-1980s to early '90s.

§   I first experimented in creating a family totem from a fallen backyard camphor tree. More     hand-carved, enamel finished totem poles followed (2023-ongoing), including Fresh Water and Saltwater fish, Flora with Woodpecker, Tattooed Leg, The Flying Silhouettesas. With gratitude and appreciation to Bayouside Trees, Jeanerette, LA, for allowing me to obtain logs from the burn pile.

§   The Greetings from series (2024-ongoing) features a continuing project, currently numbering 50+ 11” x 14” acrylic on canvas paintings that mimic Curt Otto Teich’s linen-textured, brightly colored 1930s’ travel postcard motifs. The series capitalizes on word play, such as Lois Lane, Curs'n Way, Hope Springs (Eternal), Prat Falls, and Cut Corners.

§    A metal-backed acrylic on canvas license plate series (2025, Part 1) featuring puns, word play, and classic road worthy images, including Muscle, Mussel, Carpool, Christine, Road Runner, Rabbit and Hare, Snail, and 17 others in the first batch.

§    A literal matchbox miniature series (13/8" x 2" acrylic on paper box, 2025), including Baby Light My Fire, Ignition Sequence Start, Great Balls of Fire, Lamp Lighter, and 30 others.

§    Still unfolding 2023-26 comic book (anticipated Dec. 2026 hand-bound limited release) and the offshoot Rehabilasock novelty (2024).

§    On the 2026-27 horizon, larger format, more abstract landscapes to join the narrative Bayou Teche and literary fest paintings.

I am very much appreciative of all who find time to interact with my visual work. I’m most influenced by Matt Groening’s “Life in Hell”, Robert Crumb, Roy Lichtenstein, Gary Larson. Rube Goldberg, Kash Koolidge, and everything found at the Art Institute of Chicago. While my route to honing visual artistic tools has been protracted and circuitous, it’s not without tangent artistic influences, such as Mr. Coleman’s, as well as Mark Harris (author, Bang the Drum Slowly) and Joy Harjo (23rd United States Poet Laureate) being former creative writing instructors while an undergraduate at Arizona State University. I hope my work brings a smile, provokes thought, or tweaks a welcomed synapse. I am grateful to have reached a point where an early passion has become my foremost means of expression, and I am grateful that you have discovered my "primitive", gorilla outlier compositions.

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 Contact the artist: zentricart@gmail.com