“Getting ready to work keeping the shipping case was
important.  Initially it was a big guess as to what was inside.  I
never wanted to forget that look.  The question became, how
to keep it.  How to make this first look an idea worth saving
since it is a step in getting ready to work.”        Sam Gilliam

Sam Gilliam  (Art of Note Purchase award) is an American abstract painter, born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1933. Sam Gilliam has been acclaimed as one of the most important and inventive colorists of the last thirty years and one of the two most important African-American artists of the twentieth century. He was the first artist to be invited to work at Tandem Press, and has continued his relationship with Tandem to this day.  Sam lives and works in Washington D.C.

http://www.tandempress.wisc.edu/tandem/gallery/gilliam/gilliam.htm
http://www.artnet.com/artist/6997/Gilliam_Sam.htm