Gary McCracken has developed a passion for working in wood - producing furniture, sculptures and bowls. The mosaics are done in a "pique assiette" style to produce decorative vessels.

"While living in the Virgin Islands and Florida , I collected all types of wood from trees blown over by violent hurricanes. The pottery shards for the mosaic work would wash up on the beaches after the storms as well, so the raw materials were right there for me," he says.

Repurposing these materials after storms became important to the work.

The sculptural quality of the bowls is derived from organic shapes found in nature as well as inspiration from artists like Jean Arp, Alexandre Noll and Russel Wright.

The mosaic vessels are often inspired by the very object that the broken pieces encase. Their outcome is always a pleasant surprise after much tedious work- Imagine a 3-D jigsaw puzzle.

Gary's goal has been to produce the wood bowls and mosaic vessels as objets d'art - utilitarian in nature but also highly decorative.

He is currently working as a photographer for the Pensacola Blue Wahoos minor league baseball team - after a 30-year career as a photojournalist.

Gary is married, has two teenage children, a labrador retriever and a Cruzan rescue cat- all of whom tolerate his creative endeavors.