Art Exhibitions: Competition Exhibition Painting
by David Jay Spyker
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The Painting “Someday” in Battle Creek Competition
"Someday", by David Jay Spyker, (2005, Acrylics on Board, 4 x 6 in.)
The small painting, “Someday”, is currently on display as part of the 27th Annual Michigan Artists’ Competition at the Art Center of Battle Creek in Battle Creek, Michigan. The show, which includes 55 works by 43 regional artists, was judged by Jane Connell, Director of Collections and Exhibitions/Senior Curator of the Muskegon Museum of Art in Michigan. It runs from June 2 through July 1, 2006.
The Acrylic Painters’ Forum
A forum for and about representational painters working in acrylics.
When I first began painting with acrylics, there were no local teachers instructing students about the finer points and advanced techniques of the medium. The medium is young when compared to oils, and has undergone significant changes and improvements in just the last decade. Even now, the number of advanced acrylic painting instructors is small, and the medium’s potential is still being explored and developed by both the artists and the acrylics manufacturers.
I learned to work with acrylics by experimentation, and by reading every book I could find on the subject. In the beginning, I tried many different brands of paint, until I finally discovered artists’ acrylics made by Golden Paints. More than a decade ago, Golden was there with detailed technical advice in the form of product data sheets, color indices, and such. There were times I spoke with the head of their laboratory over the phone; Mark Golden even answered the phone once, and I spoke with him for a while.
Teaching oneself to paint, while rewarding, can be an arduous journey. I would like the discussions in this forum to provide the same level of support and assistance to acrylic painters that Golden has always supplied to artists – to make the journey a little less arduous. I hope this forum will provide a place where representational painters working in acrylics can share techniques and ideas, and develop a sense of community. Together, we can lift each others’ art to greater levels of mastery.
I invite representational painters working in acrylics, and anyone interested in the style and medium, the art, and the artists to join the forum at http://www.acrylicsforum.davidjayspyker.com/.
The acrylics forum has since been closed: http://www.acrossthewaters.davidjayspyker.com/2007/11/23/the-acrylics-forum-is-closed/
The Wings of Butterflies
Originally written February 3, 2002 at 4:12 a.m.:
I am in the studio working and listening to “Queen’s Greatest Hits II”; music has always been tremendously important to me, and I grew up listening to Queen. I remember the day that Freddie Mercury left us (what has it been, something like ten? eleven years?), and the profound sense of loss that I felt upon hearing the news. A lasting knot visited my stomach on that day. Of course I never knew the man personally, but he, along with his fellow musicians, laid their hearts bare for all to experience through the intimate nature of their words and music; when an artist takes that kind of risk, we all are given the opportunity to come to know that person on a close level. If we take that opportunity, then they become part of us, we are enriched.
The day Freddie passed, we all knew that there would be no more Queen, that the clarion song of that voice would no longer grace our ears, and that the world had lost some truth and magic; but we also knew that he had left us with something of himself that would endure even well beyond our passing. I listen to the music, and he is alive in a corner of my soul. It is something I will always carry with me. It is hope.
My thoughts inevitably drift from Freddie Mercury to Martin Maddox. Martin, that clenched knot returned to my gut when I learned of your death. You left your soul raw upon your canvasses, bleeding your heart dry with every stroke of the brush. I am glad to have known you; your work is as much a part of me as is my own – thank you.
To Freddie, Martin, and all those deep and daring souls who have gone all too soon (is it ever not too soon): your souls are “painted like the wings of butterflies” – fly. We will carry on with the show.
The Beginning
Welcome. I will be sharing my thoughts and writings here; some of them will be older things dug up from time to time, and translated from paper and pencil scratchings, while most will be thoughts current to the time of their posting. I would like to share my mind not only as it pertains to art, but as to all manner of subjects and events that affect who I am, and what I do.
I am the sum of my thoughts and emotions, my concerns and beliefs; this is what I paint.
Note (November 2008): This is the second iteration of this blog, and it has been manually transferred from the original blog where many of the first posts were kept private.