Thom Atkins and his Art

A fifth generation Californian, Thom was born in Palo Alto, raised in Minnesota, and returned to California to earn a BA in Art from San Jose State. Following college, he joined the Navy for four years, during which he taught oil painting while stationed in Japan, completed Medical Illustration School in Bethesda, Maryland, and did illustrations for the Navy at the Smithsonian Institute. After the Navy, Thom settled in Seattle, Washington for a few years, where he did graduate work at an art institute, managed a craft gallery, and eventually started his own business as a landscape designer. This experience contributed to his passion for color, texture and form on a grand scale. From Seattle, Thom went to New York for three years, where he began working with stained glass, making both flat and three-dimensional pieces. He also taught glass art in the public school system as a visiting artist.

Thom returned to Santa Cruz, California in 1980 where he still lives. He continued to create stained glass pieces on a commission basis for a while. Concurrently, to feed his developing interest in less fragile types of sculpture, he returned to school to study welding, forging, silver smithing, and bronze casting. In this last area, he found his life's passion. Settling on bronze as his primary medium, Thom soon began working on the "Warrior Suite." At the same time another powerful influence entered Thom's life: the "Men's Movement." Here he finally found his artistic voice and his favorite subject material - the many aspects of men's lives, the real core issues that lie beneath the layers of culture, society and politics. For that matter, Thom believes clothing masks the essential nature of man, and thus chooses to explore his topics by working primarily with nudes, unless the subject material requires a specific era or cultural marker.

Thom's work has been seen in many shows across the nation, and may be seen on an ongoing basis in the following gallery:

• Brand X Antiques, 570 Castro Street, San Francisco, CA 94114, 415-626-8908

He usually participates in "Open Studio Santa Cruz" showcasing artists of Santa Cruz County. This is a juried, public event held every year during the first three weekends of October.

Thom also shows his work by private appointment.