RetroPets

Here's Krista, in her vintage faux leopard coat, with Darla in a 1961 Buick Electra Convertible. (The

car's a loaner but she'd love to own one just like it someday!) Krista has a passion for all things

vintage! It began during her years at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where she received a BFA in

graphic design. She would go without lunches in order to buy books featuring vintage design

collections. She loved it all: Opulent cigar label lithographs of the early 1900's, sleek and elegant Art

Deco posters and packaging, whimsical images on vintage matchbook covers. When she first moved

to New Mexico in 1995, she faced an apartment of bare walls. She decided to decorate in her favorite

style and since she couldn't afford the real thing, she turned to her book collections.

Krista has only just recently become a dog owner…can you believe it! Now she wonders how she ever

got along without little Darla. "I pored through my books and found the images I loved best, then

painted them large, on masonite or old wood and antiqued them," Krista explains. A couple of years

later Jason Suttle, a friend knowing she was an artist (and a starving one at that), asked if she would do

a painting of his Jack Russell named Fergus. Krista loved the idea and when Jason told her to just do

whatever she wanted, she loved it even more. "I figured why not do it as a beer label, Flying Fergus

Pale Ale - Good Dog Good Beer, with his little dog leaping through the center," says Krista. Jason loved

the end result and so did everyone else, so she started taking commissions in the spring of 1998.

"Jason was such a doll, he lent the painting back to me every weekend to take up to the flea market

(just north of Santa Fe) so I would have something to show," she explains.

Nowadays, instead of taking commissions, Krista concentrates her time on making new prints. Dogs

are center stage right now but she plans to add cats, horses, pigs and even birds to the Retro Pets

gang. As Krista puts it, "I'm drawing as fast as I can!"