Baker Artist Portfolios

The Marco paintings are the second in a series of  paintings interpreting photographs (in this case Polaroid) taken while visiting Marco Island  in 2007.

In 2005 I got addicted to eBay for a little while, and started collecting 1980's swatch watches. These paintings are the result.

Paintings based on the old-school lighted signage in the Fremont Street area of Las Vegas.

sometimes I take photos

These visual works are created from sound. 

Created at Quiet Waters Park in 9/2006, this four room interactive multi-level installation was constructed upon the cement ruins of a hunting lodge that predated the park. Made of driftwood and found objects collected from the bay, it was intended as a place of contemplation in order to question humanity's relationship with our collapsing environment. This came about because of a beach I'd been going to since 1989. For the first several years, I would collect and carry out trash I'd find along that mile of cliffs.

Eight years ahead of the Excessivism Movement that started in 2015, Ocean was a sensory overload of a critique on our consumerist culture gone wild. Constructed in March 2007 for one month in the main gallery of the Creative Alliance, it's ship-shaped installation sat on a diagonal across the 2000 sq ft space and contained eight rooms, each with a unique theme. It was a 360 degree shift in materials and concept from the preceding public sited ship installations, each of which  were constructed primarily of slab wood around or near existing trees.

My sculptural concepts were initially forged by earlier periods of my life outside of mainland America, such as my high school years in the Panama Canal Zone. (1966-71) Slashing through the often dense jungle offered colorful adventures, yet also set a perservering attitude that many years later helped me through the most challenging fifteen years of my life in which I underwent seven near-death health experiences. I discovered how to cast out the spirit of fear or the need for recognition and turned towards the pursuit of the deeper mysteries of life.  I am a warrior.

My identity as a sailor and global nomad flows from a colorful upbringing amid certain cultural crossroads, from the Asia Pacific islands to Central America.

At nine months old, I learned to walk aboard an ocean liner crossing the Pacific Ocean. Since then I've been aboard supertankers, WWII military landing crafts, yachts, trimarans, speedboats,  dug out canoes and outriggers.  So, it was only natural that my work often cycles through the ship as an metaphor of life's journey, from the womb to the cradle to the coffin. 

These landscape inspired paintings were the result of a surprise encounter with an urban bamboo forest and a fascination with the patterns of birch trees.