Published in the January 25, 2013 issue of the Bainbridge Island Review.

Third place winner of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association’s 2013 Better Newspaper Contest in the “Personality Profile, long-form” category.

Traumatic life events drew Daniels to the island, to a new kind of art, to an imagination that sprawls to life in the faces of colorful cats he calls his muse.

Up until about 2008, Daniels lived with his wife, Chitmarie, in Orange County, Calif. and made art on a freelance basis. They were comfortable. Their daughter grew up taking trips to Laguna Beach with her parents, and with their support, blossomed as an artist of her own in theater, paint and music.

Through ad agencies, Daniels was contracted to do album art for Motown Records, Warner Brothers and Jet Records, as well as greeting cards and movie posters. He worked on art for Myst (the video game), and for musicians such as Prince, Bob Dylan and Russell Crowe (for his debut EP released in Australia and New Zealand). He did the screen graphics for the 1995 sci-fi movie “Virtuosity,” a futuristic film that featured Crowe and Denzel Washington.

Later, he did work with publishing companies, doing book cover illustrations.

“It was really fun going to work with all these creative people,” Daniels said.

He won numerous awards for photography and illustrations all the way up until 2008.

But one by one, tragedy fell on his shoulders.

First his mother, who encouraged his art from the beginning, passed away. The following year, his father passed away, who was the one who pushed him to go to the party where he met his future wife.

Then the next year, his wife suffered a sudden heart attack. The love of his life, Chitmarie, who had worked many years in health clinics and led a healthy life, was taken from him by what the doctors called, “the silent killer.”

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