Here are images and links for the works installed in public, corporate, and other locations viewable by the public. Some are permanent installations, some are present or past showings.
Seen in Public
Nature Nights, 2022
Nature Nights was a winter-long exhibition at the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden. Michael was the featured artist throughout the Botanical Garden for the exhibit, which also featured many thousands of tiny LED lights illuminating the grounds and the art.
The Obispo Town Musicians
The San Luis Obispo Public Market at Bonetti Ranch features the public art installation entitled “The Obispo Town Musicians.” It is modeled after the Grimm’s fairytale, “The Bremen Town Musicians.” The image to the right is the final installation. The image in the circle is the model that was used in the initial proposal.
The Public Market is located on the grounds of the Long-Bonetti Ranch; one of the last of the ranches now occupied by the city of San Luis Obispo. The Public Market preserves the old ranch house and water tower and rusting farm implements from the ranch, and the artwork was designed to represent the farming and ranching heritage of the site and the community. It is located at Tank Farm Road and South Higuera Street in San Luis Obispo, CA.
Video: America the Promise
“America, the Promise featuring Michael’s work. From Randy Allen for Studios on the Park.
Studios on the Park: America – The Promise
Through November 19 in the atrium at Studios on the Park in Paso Robles CA.This is a group show curated by WB Eckert.
Something About Art
“Something about Art” Episode #2 featuring Michael. From Michael Souza on Vimeo.
Tam’s Dream
Can be seen at
Good Earth Natural Foods
201 Flamingo Road, Mill Valley, CA
genatural.com
An enlarged variation of the flying lady you see in the gallery above. She is seven feet nine inches long from toes to nose with a seven foot wing span. The original it was patterned after is six feet long. She is suspended sixteen feet off the ground in a thirty two foot high cupola near the cash registers.
Gallery
About Michael
Biography, Artist’s Statement, Facts and Details
Biography
I was born in Oklahoma, but not for long. My parents had a nomadic streak, and a distinct Baptist tilt. We lived in 10 cities and 15 houses from Texas to Texas, to Texas, to Washington state and California by the time I reached high school.
Art was always a factor, and my native talents were recognized early. In high school I knew. Making art, and especially three dimensional art, was IT for me. IT still is.
The late sixties—the cultural revolution embodied in that time, the music, the expansive openness, the hope of real transformation—all of these, in concert with my Gypsy caravan childhood, are the formative context of my conceptual framework, and for my art and my vision—the bohemian streak is indelible.
But for 40 years, art was not at center stage. A growing family, jobs in newspaper, welding, and technical writing, a meandering but ultimately final detachment from my Baptist roots, a bachelors degree in theoretical linguistics at the University of Washington, and decades of tinkering with old VWs kept me busy, and fleshed out the context and skill set that now informs my work.
In 2002, I moved to San Luis Obispo with my life partner, Peggy Sonoda, to take up the life of a sculptor full time. My studio is in the hills east of Cambria, and we call it Windhook after the nearly constant and variable breezes and the barn and tree swallows that ride that wind from March through August.
From 2011 to 2014, I was the president of the Central Coast Sculptors’ Group at San Luis Obispo Museum of Art. I was also a board member at the Museum from 2013 to 2015, and was a primary instigator and driving force behind the Phantom Project, which was a loose coalition of artists who launched pop up gallery shows in vacant retail space around San Luis Obispo County in 2012. I have also participated in the selection of public art in the county, juried for the Paso Robles Art Association, and am focused on exposing the community to more art wherever possible.
In 2021, we began the construction of a new house and 3 art studio spaces at Windhook—a big house that now has 3 generations and 11 warm chairs at dinner every night. In November of 2023, the construction was nearly complete and I was in the process of delivering work to the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden for their winter-long exhibit. As I began to load the truck I suddenly found myself in the greatest pain I had ever experienced, all focused in my left leg. My helper rushed me to the emergency room, and less than a week later I was being transported, minus my left leg below the knee, to a rehab hospital for Thanksgiving. The next week I was back in the hospital to take off the knee. The amputation was caused by a blood clot that baffled the doctors. I had no prehistory of vascular problems and extensive tests provided no clue to explain why it had happened. By the Spring of 2025, a year and a half after that trip to the ER, with excellent prosthetics, lots of physical therapy, and the amazing and relentless care and support of many people, but most of all, Peggy, my brother, and our kids, I’m in the new studios and I’m once again working on a public art commission, with other small commissions in the queue.
My primary attention is currently on public and semipublic figurative sculptural installations for natural, urban and commercial environments, but I’m always open to private commissions and planning to make them a bigger focus…let’s talk
Artist’s Statement
In my art, I explore the physical energy that expresses emotion, primarily in the human form, although sometimes I explore how that same energy emerges in animals. I’ve been obsessed with the magic of the human figure for way too long to call it a simple infatuation. The human body is IT.
And IT speaks my language and I talk back.
For the past 10 years or so, I have worked in small diameter steel rod stock, forming three dimensional line drawings of living forms. These come out of my head and design themselves as we go. I rarely use models. You see, I try to freeze movement, and it is difficult for a model to hold still with the full energy of motion.
I do not worry about what anything I do might mean. I find the impressions of others about what a piece “means” or what it expresses, to be surprising to me, and insightful—generally different from what I was thinking when I made the work. To me this is the highest validation of a piece. Yes, I made it, but I feel like it was channeled. Not by spirits, but by the work itself. The pieces have dimensions I was not aware of in the making.
My current work is mostly life scale and larger. My primary focus is on permanent placements in locations viewable by significant numbers of people—public, natural, retail, and corporate environments.
When I am not wrapped up in a public art project with a tight schedule, I work on smaller projects and commissions to stay in the flow. In this work mode I make work that is suitable for a wide array of collectors. Let’s come up with a great piece that captures your imagination along with mine.
Facts & Details
Exhibits- San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden, Nature Nights, November-February, 2022
- San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden, Art in the Garden Show, by invitation, 2020
- Three Part Harmony, three person show with Colleen Gnos and Larry LeBrane,
- August 2017, Studios on the Park, Paso Robles.
- Arts Obispo popup show, March 2018, San Luis Obispo, CA.
- Phantom Project 9. Group show: Drawing and Sculpture, January 2018, The Phantom Gallery, San Luis Obispo, CA.
- America: The Promise. Group show. November 2017, Studios on the Park, Paso Robles, CA.
- “Three Part Harmony. ” A three person exhibit with Colleen Gnos and Larry Lebrane, August 2017, Studios on the Park, Paso Robles, CA.
- Studios on the Park, Paso Robles, CA, 2014.
- McMeen Gallery, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, San Luis Obispo, CA.
Four group shows from 2010 to 2013
Two person show with Lucie Ryan, Spring, 2011 - Cambria Center for the Arts exhibits, Cambria, CA
Summer of 2012—Honorable Mention,
Fall of 2012,
Summer of 2011—First Place - Phantom Project exhibits, San Luis Obispo County
January 2012,
May 2012—Two Honorable Mentions - 3rd annual Santa Barbara Sculptors’ Guild winter show
Faulkner Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA, Spring, 2010 - Presentation at Pecha Kucha night at the Steynberg Gallery,San Luis Obispo, CA. December 2010.
- Hearts Obispo 4
Arts Obispo, San Luis Obispo, CA, Winter, 2010
From 2014 to 2017 there was an hiatus from exhibiting to refine and develop the current work in steel wire.
Projects and Innovations
- Founder and director of the Phantom Project, orchestrating pop-up exhibitions around San Luis Obispo County.
- Former publisher of Outside the Lines, a weekly email publication for artists and other creative people seeking to make a lifestyle around their craft. Publication ran from October 2011 to April 2013.
- Orchestration and management for California Slam, a biennial juried exhibition that surveys current directions in California sculpture. (Three exhibits so far)
- Assistant curator for two shows at Allied Arts of Cambria, 2011 and 2012.
- Juror for a 2014 exhibit for the Paso Robles Art Association.
- Juror for the selection of a public art installation in Paso Robles in 2012.
Work In Progress
The focus has moved away from temporary exhibitions and into permanent public and semi-public settings. Currently there are a number of projects under development. As they roll out, you can see them in Seen in Public.
Education
- Bachelor’s Degree, University of Washington
- Seminars and Coursework in Sculpture, 3-D design, ceramics, drawing, creativity at Seattle Central Community College, Gavillan College, Cabrillo College, Cuesta College, UC Santa Cruz Extension, UCLA Extension
Affiliations
- Arts Obispo (member)
- San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (former board member)
- Central Coast Sculptors’ Group (former president)
Playtime
This probably should be my artist’s statement. The things I post may or may not fit in another spot in the web site. But they represent most fully why I make art.
The Goat
My brother has a GTO. He takes it to car shows and buys obscenely high priced, high octane gas to get it to run. It’s loud and whiplash fast. It sleeps in the garage a lot.
A few years back, I made a couple of under-the-hood ornaments for him to put on it at the car shows.
One rides the radiator hose, the other is a glorified wingnut to hold the air cleaner cover in place. both are cast bronze.
The Pewter Project
Back around 2010, I was working small. I spent some time dabbling in bronze, but needed commissions to cover the cost. So in the down time, I developed a process for pouring pewter into high heat silicone rubber molds that I could reuse many times.
I developed 17 poses in rubber molds. 7 were male, 10 were female. I still have those molds in storage. Each figure is about four and a quarter inches tall. All of them were represented in the diptych “The Chasm”.
I used some of the same figures in “the Clique,” shown at the top of this post and “the Players.” all of these were dioramas of a sort.
I have a long standing interest in the role of context, and these pieces rely entirely on social context since the figures are copied unchanged from one piece to the next. Watch for a post entitled “Max Wax” for another study in context. It’s not up yet but when it is, I will edit this with a link.
Shadow Play
As soon as I began to play with the open wire figure, I noticed the shadows. They are two dimensional line drawings in light. Two dmensional line drawings of three dimensional line drawings! Is your head spinning yet?
The shadow drawings flatten the image. Photographs also flatten the image, and because the wire figure is transparent, you can see the back right through the front. When you look at the work in person, your stereo vision tells you what is in front and what is in back. But in photos, and in shadows, it can be hard to tell if the figure is facing toward you or away from you.
Now let’s add another twist to all of this confusion. I promise, your head will spin before we are done.
Much of my work is designed to hang in mid air. The life sized figures only weigh about 20 pounds and hang easily. The piece in this video was hung at Studios on the Park in Paso Robles in August of 2017 for an exhibit called Three Part Harmony. It was a three person show with Colleen Gnos and Larry LeBrane.
It hung from a single strand of 1/16″ aircraft cable, and from time to time on the opening night I would give it a spin. I discovered that a whole new dimension was revealed in the rotation of the piece.
But wait! there’s more. The next video is of a piece I hung at one of the Phantom Shows put on by the Sculpture Group which was affiliated with the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art back in the day. It occurred in January of 2018.The effect was to project two shadow line drawings on the wall that were clearly representing the same piece. But each was completely unique with respect to the other. And of course, I gave the piece a spin now and then. It would turn around 15 or so times, wind the cable, and then spin back the other way, unwinding the cable. This process took about 5 minutes to complete, and I found that the viewers of the spin were transfixed. Every time I spun it, a crowd gathered to watch it, and did not move on until it stopped. It was as if the constantly changing drawings on the wall and the three dimensional line drawing spinning in the room were too much to absorb. It’s not quite the same in video, but take a look.