When I decided to publish my own books I came up with the name, “Little Rhino Books” and soon started calling my studio, “Little Rhino Studio.”  In 2009, I put a computer in my art studio and found that I would also work on architectural projects in that space.  Since I now jump back and forth from painting to drawing to architecture in the same location I decided to call all of my entities “Little Rhino,” incorporating my architectural business as “Little Rhino Studio, P.C.”

The rhinoceros is an important symbol to me for two reasons: its association with Albrecht Dürer and with the endangered animal.

In the year 1515 AD, the German artist, Dürer, produced a wood block print of a rhinoceros.  The image was based entirely on a verbal description he had been given by a sailor who had seen a rhinoceros in captivity in Portugal.  When I was eight years old I was living on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu when I saw a reproduction of Dürer’s rhinoceros.   I was so attracted to the fine line work and Dürer’s wonderful interpretation of the rhinoceros that I proceeded to copy both the drawing and the style using a No. 2 pencil.  I continued to draw in a style that resembled Dürer’s prints, later using pen and ink, and as an architecture student, turning to a mechanical pen.

The smallest of the five surviving species of rhinos is the Sumatran Rhinoceros.  With a weight ranging from 1,100 to 1,760 pounds, this rhino has two horns and is covered in reddish brown hair.  It is a deep rainforest dweller and, with only an estimated 300 individuals left in the wild, is the second most endangered rhinoceros, after the Javan Rhino, of which only 60 remain.  This unique creature has evolved and survived since the time man’s ancestors first began walking up-right.  To me it symbolizes strength, endurance, beauty, and the miracle of life and nature.  It also represents my own commitment to fighting for the preservation of the environment that serves man, rhinos, and all that exists in our world.