Jimmy is a southern folk artist and art car owner working exclusively with recycled materials, most especially bottlecaps. He began creating furniture in 1998, after being diagnosed with Hodgkins Disease. Since then his creations have evolved to include "The Bottlecap Truck" as well as other forms of art. He is recognizable in the northeast Georgia area as the "bottlecap truck guy," and has taken "cap man" as his folk artist name. His work has been carried in several northeast Georgia galleries since 1999, and he has been personally participating in folk art shows since 2004. His goal is to use his art to bring a smile to everyone he meets.

Although born in California, Jimmy was raised (mostly) in Florida, and has been a resident of the Athens, Georgia area since 1995. He and his wife, Laura, have lived in Winterville, since 2001, with their dog, "Allie," chickens, and goats. The two-acre property includes their 13th historic renovation, a unique 1870Õs self-proclaimed "funky farmhouse" that they moved from Athens to save from demolition, a freestanding garage, workshop, large garden and goat pen. Restoration is almost complete, but is always an ongoing project. Jimmy is looking to expand his workshop into a barn Ð and Laura will finally have her gardening shed back.

Jimmy's art training ended badly in eighth grade with a pen and ink sketch graded as D-. Understandably, this art dry spell lasted until 1998, when he began creating rustic furniture out of unused historic building materials while restoring an old barn into a cottage. It was, unknowingly, "art therapy" while he was undergoing chemotherpy for Hodgkins disease. His first piece, "Re-Barn," a bench, was immediately acknowledged by local art guru Donald Keyes and awarded first place at that yearÕs Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation annual holiday gala and art auction. Since then his creations have included other furniture, birdshacks, clocks, bottlecap boxes, and paintings.

A chance encounter with vintage Crush bottlecaps in an antique store sparked an interest in using them as a "signature" on his furniture. This use of bottlecaps evolved into a vision to completely cover his 1979 Ford F150 work truck with them, creating a mobile piece of identifiable art. "The Bottlecap Truck" was created in 1999, and has since evolved from its colorful origins to a fine, rusty, patina (Jimmy's favorite color). Jimmy was not aware of the larger, national, art car movement until a chance encounter with Chub (Heaven and Hell Car) in 2000 brought him into contact with this world, which he now enjoys immensely.

Jimmy's creations still include rustic furniture such as thrones, benches, chairs, tables and cabinets. These are a combination of architectural and natural elements, such as historic building materials and granite remnants from nearby quarries. He has also made completely bottlecapped furniture, recreating the colorful, original, look of the bottlecap truck on otherwise unloved pieces of old furniture. Whimsical birdshacks, unique antique tin clocks featuring stars or bottlecaps, and colorful, handmade, bottlecap boxes make up his offering of small art creations.

Jimmy has several different series of paintings. The Patriotic Rasta series, based on his late dog, are black and white drawings of Rasta titled by his moods Ð such as Panting, Sleepy, Sneaky - and colored in red, white and blue. JimmyÕs American flags are done on a variety of mediums such as old tin or recycled wood and are either plain or political. His mountain scenes are inspired by many hikes and drives through the Appalachian Mountains. Inspirational sayings typically accompany his simple, colorful, flowers. The addition of Easter chicks to the household inspired very tall chicken paintings done in yellow, blue, or red on recycled wood or tin.