Thomas Waters- Artist

10/23/2026

For me, this feels like a big step forward. My first time being included in a gallery show in my new home, Puerto Vallarta. I am unfortunately unable to attend the opening as I’m still in Pittsburgh area where my dad is still in the hospital. But I’ll be back to see the exhibition before it comes down.

Thanks to all my friends and artist friends who keep encouraging me to make work.

Dia de los Mu***os is an important cultural event for Mexicans. Their devotion to family and remembering our ancestors is something all of us can learn som from.

When I finished photography school I was doing commercial photography freelance, but I also began to make personal work about being a gay man living in a world being decimated by HIV/AIDS. And I remember the moment I decided to stop making work about that.

And then my creativity seemed to dry up.

This dia de los mu***os, I’m putting a candle on the ofrenda for that artist part of me from my past. May the me of today have room to open up my soul and see that being still within me.

10/22/2026

New image in the series. I made the base image over a year ago, but I’ve passed over it and just now made a first print of it.

Not sure if it is too busy. Or, possibly the shape has me thrown off- I’ve doing so much in a square format. What do you think?

10/22/2026

10/20/2026

From the Pablo Mark series, limited edition of 20 prints 24” × 24”; limited edition of 20 images 12.5” x 12.5”. I have explored sunsets with this Pablo Mark approach. The high contrast of sunset is a challenge as well as how the foreground and background relate to each other. When the elements of the image prompt the viewer to wonder what it is more than see the elements abstractly, it takes the viewer out of the image. What do you think of this one?

10/18/2026

From the Pablo Mark series, limited edition of 20 prints 24” x 24”; limited edition of 20 images 12.5” x 12.5”

10/15/2026

Not new, but an image I haven’t printed before. The color inspires me.

10/09/2026

My recent body of work, called Pablo. Mark uses Technology within digital photography.  Technology in and of itself is a far too broad term. Simply editing photographs in a computer allows technology to touch art.

At the far end of the spectrum of technology, is Generative AI. I would be lying if I didn’t say I’d played with it a little bit. For example, while editing a self portrait where the toes of one of my feet were missing, I used generative AI to fill it fill in those toes in the end, the self portrait will never be shown to others. It had other problems that keeps it from being an image I want to share, but this experience with AI and many others leads me to know that I do not want to ever really use generative AI as an artist.

But it also leaves me really wondering where is the line? When Adobe released Photoshop, I was one of the earliest adopters. Photoshop showed me how visual images are, underneath it all simply mathematical equations. Or at least that’s how I think about it. Get things like Photoshop open the doors for generative AI? Or is there some point in a spectrum of technology where on the one side it’s OK to use but on the other, it is going too far?