COLLABORATIVE ART - SANTA CRUZ, CA

Two Can Art is a collaboration between Patti Gay and her son Noah, who is autistic. Noah creates all of the painted textures that become Patti’s palette from which she creates beautiful, layered images. 

For Noah, painting is a whole sensory activity. It has been part of his program since he was young. Besides his fingers, he uses sponges, brushes, rollers, spray bottles and even bubbles to create textures. He also has a variety of different paints including acrylics, watercolor, gouache, and foam. After Noah’s painted textures are created Patti manipulates them into animal portraits and landscapes using Photoshop. “I have always found his paintings beautiful. It seems only natural that we would combine our creativity into Two Can Art.” 

Patti and Noah work from their home studio in the Santa Cruz mountains. The natural setting provides a wealth of inspiration with the beauty of both the mountains and the ocean, as well as an abundance of wildlife and flora. They also enjoy in-house inspiration from their many rescue animals, including several cats: a torti called Abby, a black & white named Benny and a wee brown tabby known as Willie, and one perfect dog, Alfie,  who can be found in many of their images.