MIMO.DOGS “A Pet Rescue Art Gala” October 18, 2026 - 18h to 23h Quinta da Bella Vista - Sintra
THE SHORT VERSION I majored in Accounting, minored in Art — some part of me already knew which one would win. It just took fifty years, a failed ballot campaign, a bathhouse sandwich window, a hitchhiker, a plane crash in Oaxaca, and a ceramics company that made it into nearly every department store in America to get there. At 79, I'm back where I started: art, and clay in my hands again. Here's the whole story, if you have a few minutes. ——————————————————————————
THE LONG VERSION There's a hen at Mimo Farm who isn't anyone's mother. A clutch of ducklings hatched there this spring, and for reasons only she knows, she took them in and raised them as her own. I photographed her myself, on a visit that changed how I saw this whole project — I'd expected dogs (Mimo Dogs re-homes close to 100 a year) and instead found donkeys, horses, chickens, geese, and pigs, and so many other animals, all part of the same unlikely family. That piece is called She Didn’t Ask Questions. Keep her in mind as you walk through tonight.
A little about how I got here. I majored in Accounting, minored in Art — some part of me already knew which one would win. It just took the long way. At 21, I built a stationery business, then signed a licensing deal timed to the 1972 election: on each item there was a mail-in ballot attached on the hot topics of the time (Vietnam, gay rights, women's rights, legalizing marijuana, abortion), genuinely believing these ballots could sway a presidency. Sales went from $3,000 a month to $100,000. My brother ran it with me — he shaved his head and wore a hard hat, I had hair down my back, and we fought loudly even in buyer meetings. They loved it. I had no business experience and no plan past election day — so once the votes were in, and the election was finished, so was my company. It folded as fast as it rose. I moved to San Francisco not long after, took a night job at a bathhouse making sandwiches through a little window, and did my photography by day. It sounds like a punchline. It wasn't — it was where I finally got comfortable in my own skin, around people who weren't asking me to explain myself.
A hitchhiker on a drive to see my sister — was on her way to start a ceramics master's in Northern California — talked with me for hours and reminded me how much I'd loved clay back in high school. That night at my sister's, the idea landed: combine my photography with ceramics, a ceramic picture frame. It sat for two years while I went to Mexico instead — crashlanded in a ten-seat plane in Oaxaca, spent a day snorkeling on LSD conducting a million small fish with one finger. Eventually I came home broke, food-stamps broke, and cashed in soda bottles to buy clay. That clay became Terragrafics — a card table at a Westwood craft fair, grown into a company selling frames in every department store in America, a factory that burned down on its first night firing a new kiln, eight years running manufacturing in Taiwan, and a sale that passed through Dakin, Burnes, Bain Capital and Newell Rubbermaid before it was through. Somewhere in there, consulting work put me across the table from my direct competitor of twenty years — Ralph Skidmore. We've been married 25 years now. Fifty years ago I had the instinct and the nerve. What I didn’t have yet was him — and it turns out that’s the difference that actually mattered. Nine years ago we sold everything and moved to Portugal. I thought I was retiring. A friend showed me AI art, and the
same instinct that once tried to swing an election with note cards woke back up. At 75, I found what I had at 21: take an idea, build it somewhere nobody expects, see what happens. I'm 79 now, four years into it — and somewhere along the way I noticed I'd landed right back where I started: art, and clay in my hands again. Not a new chapter so much as the one I'd set aside fifty years ago, finally getting picked back up. None of this happens in a vacuum. Every piece pulls from something lived first. Here's how that becomes a finished piece:
How the Work Is Made Each piece begins with a photograph I've taken, or with an image drawn from years of my own visual archive — a starting point, not a finished idea. From there, AI becomes a compositional partner, guided through countless variations in color, light, and gesture until one direction feels true. The composition itself is built the way a piece of music is built. A song is translated into rhythm — a beat for color, a pulse for light, a tempo for camera angle, a measure for emotion and scale — and these individual rhythms are
layered together until they resolve into one larger rhythm: the structure the eye follows through the piece. What follows is entirely by hand. The image is printed across a base and layers of translucent tissue, then reworked with paint, pastel, and wash, and pressed with natural elements — until the surface carries as much weight as the picture itself. Before anything is called finished, it's tested against a simple question: does it wake something in you. Proportion, value, and negative space are adjusted — often by taking away rather than adding — through as many rounds as it takes, until the subject leads and everything extraneous falls away. The result is bold at a distance, nuanced up close, and built to endure — the same rhythm, held in every piece on these walls. That craft is only half the story. The other half is what it's for.
The Giving Studio Everything here tonight is donated. I create the art, but not alone — Ralph’s eye for style and design shapes it as much as mine does, and has guidance is in every piece on these walls. He also runs everything you don't see — sponsors,
logistics, the details that turn paintings into a night that raises real money. Together, it's the Giving Studio: what we know how to do, put toward Pangea Trust and Mimo Dogs. That hen never explained herself either. She just did the thing that felt undeniably hers. So do we. Thank you for being here, and for looking closely. — Ralph Skidmore & Steve Pargman, MYX Art Production
Sponser Page EVENT & PRODUCTION • • • • •
The Giving Studio by Ralph & Steve Quinta da Bella Vista Ana Coelho Duarte Wedding Design Studio Metro Quadrado Backup
PET PRODUCTS • • •
Oscar — Angie Vindervohel It’s a Dog COOKAS Cookies
PHOTOGRAPHY • •
Karina Reshetnik Mart & Lena
MEDIA • •
LifeStyle Magazine The Portugal News
HOTEL EXPERIENCES • • • •
JNCQUOI Sublime Palácio de Seteais Quinta da Bella Vista
EXPERIENCES • • •
Quinta da Alegria Exclusif Travels & Tours Maria Ceramics
HEALTH & WELLNESS EXPERIENCES • • •
Bella Vista Amalenime Shakti Yoga with Elsa Ferreira Massage with Daniela Breath Work Session with Cristina
MUSIC & ENTERTAINMENT • • •
Joana Lobo Anta — DJ João Pedreira — DJ The Groove Box — Sound System
RESTAURANT PARTNERS • • • • • •
Romaria de Baco - Sintra Tascantiga - Sintra Meia Pipa Sintra - Sintra MESA - Comporta Vermelho Xtian - Melides Davvero Lisboa
LIFESTYLE, HOME & DESIGN • • • • • • • •
El Corte Inglés PAULA / Fashion Clinic — Amorim Luxury Group Artnis Home Textiles Project213A Vida Dura CAJU — Flores da Comporta The Life Juice LAR — LAR for Living
WINE PARTNERS • • • • • •
Quinta de Chocapalha — Wine + Wine Tasting Casa Horácio Simões — Wine Quinta do Casal Branco — Wine Casa Cadaval — Wine ManzWine — Wine + Wine Tasting Quinta de São Michel — Wine + Wine Tasting
BEVERAGE & BAR PARTNERS • •
Bar Fonte da Pipa — Beer ÁS de Copos — Bartenders & Cocktails
Bullseye
Four legs, four different moods
Bullseye Artist: Steve Pargman Materials & Processes: Hand-built high fired ceramic, fired underglaze painting Size: 23cm (wide) x 18cm (high) Opening Bid: €150 Value: €300 Buy it now: €350
Old Growth
Marked by rings, not by years
Old Growth Artist: Steve Pargman Materials & Processes: Hand-built high fired ceramic, fired underglaze painting Size: 22cm (wide) x 18cm (high) Opening Bid: €150 Value: €300 Buy it now: €350
Half and Half
Even his eye can’t agree
Half and Half Artist: Steve Pargman Materials & Processes: Hand-built high fired ceramic, fired underglaze painting Size: 23cm (wide) x 18cm (high) Opening Bid: €150 Value: €300 Buy it now: €350
Three Of A Kind
A sheep and two dogs, all in
Three Of A Kind Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Materials & Processes: see full list at the end of catalog Frame: Walnut stained wood canvas, gold-edge mount Size: 50.5 x 40.8cm Opening Bid: €325 Value: €500 Buy it now: €600
She Didn’t Ask Questions A hen, five ducklings, one heart
She Didn’t Ask Questions Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Materials & Processes: see full list at the end of catalog Frame: Walnut stained wood canvas, gold-edge mount Size: 40.4 x 30.2cm Opening Bid: €275 Value: €400 Buy it now: €500
Meet Me Halfway Different sizes, same soft hello
Meet Me Halfway Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Materials & Processes: see full list at the end of catalog Frame: Walnut stained wood canvas, gold-edge mount Size: 40.4 x 30.2cm Opening Bid: €275 Value: €400 Buy it now: €500
The Quiet Between Us
Palace behind, peace between them
The Quiet Between Us Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Materials & Processes: see full list at the end of catalog Frame: Walnut stained wood canvas, gold-edge mount Size: 40.4 x 30.2cm Opening Bid: €275 Value: €400 Buy it now: €500
Three Souls On A Branch
Three shades, one moment shared
Three Souls On A Branch Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Materials & Processes: see full list at the end of catalog Frame: Walnut stained wood canvas, gold-edge mount Size: 40.4 x 30.2cm Opening Bid: €275 Value: €400 Buy it now: €500
Told Together Side by side, same page
Told Together Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Materials & Processes: see full list at the end of catalog Frame: Walnut stained wood canvas, gold-edge mount Size: 30.4 x 30.4cm Opening Bid: €225 Value: €300 Buy it now: €400
Something Understood
Under a copper moon, no need for words
Something Understood Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Materials & Processes: see full list at the end of catalog Frame: Walnut stained wood canvas, gold-edge mount Size: 30.4 x 30.4cm Opening Bid: €225 Value: €300 Buy it now: €400
The Pack
Nobody leads, everybody goes
The Pack Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Materials & Processes: Giclée print Frame: Wood frame decoupaged with craft paper, floatmounted Size: 43 x 53cm Opening Bid: €350 Value: €500 Buy it now: €600
Blue Gate
A procession, not a crowd
Blue Gate Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Materials & Processes: Giclée print Frame: Wood frame decoupaged with craft paper, floatmounted Size: 43 x 53cm Opening Bid: €350 Value: €500 Buy it now: €600
The Wanderer
Nobody called him back yet
The Wanderer Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Materials & Processes: Giclée print Frame: Wood frame decoupaged with craft paper, floatmounted Size: 43 x 53cm Opening Bid: €350 Value: €500 Buy it now: €600
Bravio
Pride and presence, captured in full color
Bravio Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Frame: Back-printed on clear acrylic panel Size: 40 x 30cm Opening Bid: €175 Value: €250 Buy it now: €350
The Quiet Rebel
Graceful, curious and perfectly at home among the unexpected
The Quiet Rebel Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Frame: Back-printed on clear acrylic panel Size: 40 x 30cm Opening Bid: €175 Value: €250 Buy it now: €350
Golden Temper
Strength and individuality against a field of vibrant possibility
Golden Temper Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Frame: Back-printed on clear acrylic panel Size: 40 x 30cm Opening Bid: €175 Value: €250 Buy it now: €350
Nine Lives
Curiosity in full color
Nine Lives Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Frame: Back-printed on clear acrylic panel Size: 25 x 25cm Opening Bid: €100 Value: €135 Buy it now: €175
Good Company
Loyalty with a colourful point
Good Company Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Frame: Back-printed on clear acrylic panel Size: 25 x 25cm Opening Bid: €100 Value: €135 Buy it now: €175
Stubbornly Bright
Standing firm in a world of color
Stubbornly Bright Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Frame: Back-printed on clear acrylic panel Size: 25 x 25cm Opening Bid: €100 Value: €135 Buy it now: €175
All In The Family
Different faces. One colorful family
All In The Family Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Frame: Back-printed on clear acrylic panel Size: 20 x 20cm Opening Bid: €65 Value: €95 Buy it now: All 9 for €1000
Friends & Family
Small in stature, big in personality
Mrya
Gustav
Valentino
Greta
Zé
Onion
Batata
Yoda
Molly
Bounce
Rosie
Knuff
Friends & Family Artist: Ralph Skidmore & Steve Pargman Materials & Processes: Hand-built high fired ceramic, fired underglaze pencil Size Range: 21cm (width) x 15cm (high) Opening Bid: €35 Value: €50 Buy it now: €65
Seen in a New Light
Four colors, one dog who never stopped waiting
Nothing to Run From Anymore
Watching From the Wire
Quiet Under a Gold Moon
Crowned and Unbothered
Gala Banners
Artist: Steve Pargman & Ralph Skidmore Size & Materials: 2 x 2m Opaque canvas print Opening Bid: €40 Buy it now: €75
Mixed Materials & Processes — The list below
represents the studio's palette; each work uses only a selection of these materials as appropriate to the image.
Imaging & Supports • Archival pigment print (inkjet). • Archival inkjet paper (acid-free, cotton rag or alphacellulose; where applicable). • Reverse-printed acrylic panel (direct print to the reverse face of clear acrylic, no additional surface layering).
Papers / Tissues • Chinese xuan paper (ultra-lightweight, conservationgrade).
Binders & Paints • Artist-grade acrylic dispersion paints. • Acrylic polymer gel medium (gloss/matte) — lamination / embedding.
Crackle / Grounds • Clear acrylic crackle medium (hairline) (tint washes applied post-crackle as needed).
Aggregates / Minerals • Silica sand; mineral aggregates. • Mica flake (muscovite).
Botanical Elements • Dried botanical fibres (grass stems/seed heads), stabilized. • Stabilized botanical moss (encapsulated in acrylic polymer gel).
Drawing Media • Soft pastels (artist-grade).
Metal Leaf / Metallic Finishes • Metal leaf (composition metal leaf). • Hand-combed metallic finish on border.