Artist: Phil Sugden

Phil Sugden was born and raised in England and emigrated to the U.S. in 1954. He currently lives in Findlay, Ohio, where he has a studio. A graduate of the New York School of Visual Arts and the Paris American Academie des Beaux Arts, he's a world traveler who has made 12 journeys throughout the Himalaya and Tibet. He and his wife have traveled to 50 countries and hosted the Dalai Lama in their home and studio. In the 1980s he was an adjunct professor at the University of Findlay and taught for eight years in the Lima Correctional Institution and the Allen County Institution. He's received numerous grants and his work has been exhibited in more than 100 solo and 130 group shows internationally, including galleries and museums in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Washington D.C., Melbourne, and Kathmandu. He is currently a professor of studio art and gallery director at Bluffton University.

Artist statement: The front of the violin references an English cottage. My favorite composers are English - Fredrich Delius, Vaughan Williams, Finzi - pastorals and tone poems where strings tend to be strong throughout the pieces. The image on the backside of the violin is a tree that I titled, "Axis Mundi," which makes reference to the connection between two sides of the same object-heaven and earth. I use it here to connect the violin/music to the visual art on the violin itself. I used a brown Sharpie marker to do the drawing. Sharpies tend to be permanent. Most of the drawing has two coats of marker.