About the Author

Margot Datz is an in-demand painter, illustrator, and mural artist based in Martha's Vineyard. Her work has appeared in House and Gardens, Home Magazine, InStyle, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Publishers Weekly, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, and many regional publications, as well as CNN and NPR's "All Things Considered." Dustin Hoffman bought her first piece of art. Other clients include Diane Sawyer, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, and Carly Simon. Datz has maintained a close creative affiliation with Carly Simon, designing and moralizing her nightclub Hot Tin Roof and her homes, and illustrating four of her children's books, with Jacqueline Onnassis as editor.

Datz began her career as a sculptress and exhibited regularly in one-woman and group shows in Manhattan, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Martha's Vineyard. In 1978 she established Margot Datz Designs, specializing in murals and architectural trompe l'oeil, decorative painting, and interior design. She has created murals for a number of children's hospitals, dozens of prominent businesses, hundreds of homes, and the Martha's Vineyard Steamship Authority Ferry Terminal, which receives over one million tourists and travelers annually. Datz also creates original paintings, exhibits annually, and is a well-established island painter.

Enamored and bemused by the New England region, Datz developed her own indigenous iconography based on lighthouses, sailors, fishermen, mermaids, and their interplay with the great blue sea. Her archetypal approach to her surroundings addresses humorously and compassionately contemporary living and loving dilemmas as modern folk.