ARTIST STATEMENT

A successful painting, for me, has much to do with attitude. With the proper state of mind, my paintings are loose, painterly, and bold. I'm constantly fighting the hesitation and caution that comes with uncertainty or even liking what I do. Working from my imagination works better for me than having a reference to work from. The painting then is more about me, the artist, than the physical reality of the subject.

 

I work in a wide variety of techniques. I find this more interesting and challenging, and it allows me to suit the technique to the subject in terms of feeling and mood. I often see the painting in my head beforehand. The image usually occurs to me at dawn as I awaken from sleep. It's as if I'm recalling the painting from an earlier experience. I have been painting for about 30 years. I draw from my experience teaching design and composition at San Jose State University, which I did for 35 years. Painting is a passion for me, and I am driven to do it. I find I can't not paint. The only way I can take a break from it is to leave town -- usually to visit museums and galleries.

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MORE ABOUT DAVID

Like most people in the arts, I have been doing it in one form or another all my life. After graduation from San Jose State University with a B.S. in industrial design, I went to work for Ford in Detroit as a car stylist, my most notable success being the rear-end of the '69 Mustang. After two years I returned to California to work for Lockheed as an off-road vehicle designer. I spent a year in Stuttgart, Germany, working for Porsche, designing cars, helicopters, and an odd assortment of transportation devices. Returning to the USA, I put in a few more years at Lockheed and in 1974 decided to return to school to study painting. Two years later I left industry to devote myself to teaching and painting.

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I have had 11 one-man shows at Dancing Man Gallery in Santa Cruz. I've also shown at Los Robles Gallery in Palo Alto, the Union and the Luggage Store Galleries in San Francisco, and the Henry Miller Library at Big Sur. I have participated in the Santa Cruz County Open Studios yearly since 1996, and have also had numerous recent shows at Community Chest Treasures in Santa Cruz, the Pacific Grove Art Center, Santa Cruz County Government Building, Santa Cruz Art League, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, Smith Gallery at UC Santa Cruz, Stone Gallery in Oakland, and Pajaro Valley Arts Council Gallery. I taught art and design at San Jose State University for 35 years before retiring in 2002.

I find the process of design and the process of painting to be very similar; you are solving aesthetic problems in both cases. With painting, the problems are mainly subject, composition, and color.

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I generally start a painting with a few things in mind but soon the painting takes on a direction of its own and is filled with surprises -- that's the fun of it.