Gary Rainwater lives with his wife Barbara in Port Townsend, WA and is a lifelong self-taught artist whose preferred materials include oils, ceramics, and wood. A man who's always done things his own way, Gary took one art class in high school, but the teacher wasn't teaching what he wanted to learn so he never took another.

During a 22-year career as a firefighter in the city of Los Angeles, handling everything from search and rescue to fireboats, Gary was a member of the California Woodcarver's Guild, displaying his work at many shows and winning a prize at the state level.

"I'm just getting back into painting after a 30-year vacation," he says.

Gary's lifelong relationship with boats began in 1956 when he salvaged and restored a cabin cruiser. He also built three catamarans, restored a turn-of-the-century sailing cargo ship, then bought the vessel he and Barbara still own: S.V. LADYHAWK, a Danish fishing boat. The Rainwaters lived aboard boats for 32 years and raised two seaworthy daughters. Everywhere aboard LADYHAWK is ample evidence of Gary's artistic eye, in wood carvings, built-in cabinetry, etched glass, and other decoration.

Everything Gary does is crafted with characteristic forethought, care, and an artist's eye. When he and Barbara decided to settle ashore, they built Dragonfly Cottage, a small but spectacularly unique storybook house surrounded by Barbara's English cottage garden. Gary calls their Port Townsend home, featured in Cottage magazine and on a cable-channel home show, "the oldest new house in town."

A master at scrounging secondhand materials for his boats and home over the years, Gary frames most of his paintings himself. "I use whatever I can get my hands on," he says, "from barn siding to scrap molding."

Drawing inspiration from life, photographs, and any other source that strikes a resonant note, Gary likes to work big and bold, exploring images on four-foot canvases and discovering the secrets hidden in wood grain.