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Inspired by family, friends and by my high school art teacher, I enrolled in the three year graphic design program (1976-79)at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario.

Upon graduation I spent my first year in an advertising agency before opening my own freelance design studio in north Toronto during 1981.

Experiments with paper sculpture began in 1984 and before long paper sculpture played a dominant role in most of my design clients' projects and campaigns.

It was a matter of time before my life-long interest in art and wildlife combined. I had just completed a bird of prey with outstretched wings for Noranda Recycled Papers when it struck me how well suited the layering of feathers was to the art of paper sculpture.

My first series of limited edition prints were launched in 1989 at the Buckhorn Wildlife Festival in Ontario and National Trust commissioned 15 wildlife sculptures for a national campaign in 1992.

CALVIN NICHOLLS

Success at shows and with an increasing demand for my work in the corporate sector there was now a base for what has become a very exciting career.

My work was juried into shows for the first time in 1994 with the Society of Animal Artists in New York with whom I have enjoyed many years of gallery exposure throughout the United States.

Commercial Illustration awards have opened doors as well. An international firm, Follett Library Resources of Chicago, commissioned me to begin a wildlife themed campaign in 1995 which continues to this day with over 75 large sculptures completed and displayed throughout their offices. Posters of these sculptures are on display in FLR client libraries and school art departments around the world from Alaska to South Africa.

I completed 15 sculptures for an a children's book written by Rafe Martin and published in 2002 by Arthur A. Levine (an imprint of Scholastic Press in New York. The book was titled The World Before This One which gained high praise by revered Kirkus and Star Review book reviewers in the United States.

My interest in monochromatics continues. I want people to be drawn in to explore the work and to consider the medium. Although I have completed pieces in full colour I continue to experiment with the interaction of light and shadow on the surface of plain paper in off white or in multi-step grayscale equivalents as in my most recent piece titled Moonridge.

I look forward to the adventures that lie ahead and enjoy the times I have had working from my home studio with my wife watching all three of our children as they develop their own styles and skills in the world of art.

Pine Tree

Lion

Tenderfoot

Lynx

Midnight Flight

Subordinate

Approach

Boreal Owl

Beaver Family

Buffalo

Hawkeye

Driftwood

Eagle

Two Feathers

Abundance

Moose

Old Man Winter

Lion

Crow

Pheasant

Doves III

Polar Bear

Porcupine

Seahorses

Run Gacqa

Hummingbird and Lilies

January 21, 2012