Zak Kramer is a writer, artist, and musician who lives in central Ohio with his wife, six cats, two dogs, and innumerable trees. His first attempts at digital art were done on a Lite Brite, although he would later upgrade to an Apple II+. His current XP box is a slight improvement.

Although he graduated from MICA in 2001 with a Masters in Digital Arts (you can see a shot of his thesis on the program's homepage) vision problems took him away from painting. As a result, he also stopped working on the long-running graphic novel, Journey to the West.He still painted occasionally, including doing cover and interior art for PanGaia magazine (Spring and Fall 2002.)

On the other hand, this gave him the impetus to focus on his music. Although he has played guitar since 1986, and Native American flute since 1994, he had always considered music something he did for his own enjoyment. However, with painting no longer his primary creative outlet, he threw himself into music. It continues to grow and develop. His CD, "empty bowl" was a monthly World/Folk pick on MP3.com, and the song "Plowman's Blues," from that CD, made it to #1 on the Electric Blues charts.

In the fall of 2003, Zak underwent surgery to correct his vision problems, and is once again painting. However, the music isn't about to become silent.

As if that's not enough, he has returned to his first love, writing; his undergraduate degree was in English at Oberlin College. He is working on a novel with his wife, Barbara Fisher, herself a published author, as well as a series of articles entitled "Beyond the Spellbook," for PanGaia.

This probably gives you some idea of why this site is called "Crazyquilt Arts." It is just that, a concatenation of various forms and modes of creativity, combined and recombined, ever seeking to express something that lies just beyond words, beyond images, beyond sounds, and yet sings, speaks, and signs through them all.