A long overdue redesign of my art website is now complete. A suite of new navigation options let you can customize what you want to see. Some newer work has also been added, and more is on the way. Any links you had to the old website (other than the front page) will need to be updated. Please stop by DavidJaySpyker.com to enjoy the art.

Twilight in the Wood, 2010, painting by David Jay Spyker,acrylics on canvas, 14"x18"

Twilight in the Wood, painting by David Jay Spykeron display at Lowell Area Arts Council, MI

The show runs through April 10, 2010, and is worth the trip to go see it.

Lowell Area Arts Council

Armin Mersmann

"Vessels", 2008, by David Jay Spyker, Acrylics on Canvas, 30" x 42"

It’s that time of year again, and each year I express my fondness for the Carnegie Center for the Arts and the annual regional art competition held there.

This year I am pleased to show three paintings at the competition, and I do hope you will visit the exhibition.

The opening reception is always well attended by the artists and by a very supportive regional community of art lovers.

"The Journey", 2009, by David Jay Spyker, Acrylics on Canvas, 24" x 36"

Both of my larger paintings, “Vessels” and “The Journey”, should be fairly easy to spot right away.

You can read more about “Vessels” in a previous article.

“The Journey” was also exhibited last Autumn at the Art Center of Battle Creek’s 28th Michigan Artist’s Competition.

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My third piece on display will be the small painting “Water Study”, which was done in 2008.

"Water Study", 2008, by David Jay Spyker, Acrylics on Canvas, 5" x 7"

The 2010 Regional Art Competition runs from January 17  through February 20; the opening reception and awards ceremony takes place on Sunday, January 17 from 2-4 pm. You’ll find the museum in Three Rivers, Michigan. Please visit their website for directions and additonal information.

"Niagara", 2009, by David Jay Spyker - 5.5 x 8.5 inches - Acrylic Wash, Minor Drybrushing, and Paint on 100% Cotton Cold Press Watercolor Paper

The bulk of the painting was done on slightly damp to wet paper, but included some minor drybrushing, and some basic acrylic paint layering (particularly with whites and cobalt-tinted whites to achieve a misty look, and to bring back some highlights).

To thin the paints I used a mixture of distilled water, and Golden’s Open Liquid Acrylic Medium. The watercolor paper absorbed the paints very well, but I could tell toward the end that the pores in the paper were starting to get full of acrylics. Also, once fully dry, the paints will not become resoluble, so there is no going back in to blend colors later.

While not traditional watercolors, I think the acrylics performed very well in this application, and I may work on more acrylic washes on paper.

"The Journey", 2009, by David Jay Spyker, Acrylics on Canvas, 24 x 36 in.

Should you wish to attend, the group exhibition opens with a reception on October 4 from 2-4 p.m., and remains open to the public through October 24.

For directions and contact information, please visit the Art Center’s website here: www.artcenterofbattlecreek.org

"Vessels", 2008, Acrylics on Canvas, 30" x 42", by David Jay Spyker

I have been entranced with waterfall images lately – by “lately” I mean the last few years – and the idea of this space surrounded by an impossibly long and meandering wall of plummeting, rushing water was something I couldn’t get out of my mind. The myriad boats swirling and bobbing about in the swelling waters of this basin symbolize us – humanity as individuals, and as a whole. Each of us is in our own boat (we are the boats), and we all drift about together in the same dangerous and beautiful flow of life.

Wave Study, 2008, 5" x 7", Acrylics on Canvas by David Jay Spyker

The Carnegie Center for the Arts/W.R. Monroe Museum utilizes all available exhibition space for a generous showing each year. It also happens that the Carnegie is where I had my first full solo show – at the time, Tom Lowry was the director – so it definitely holds a special spot in my personal artistic history.

The 2009 Regional Juried Arts Show runs January 18  – February 22, and the opening reception and awards ceremony is on Sunday, January 18 from 2-4 pm.

The Tree, Graphite on Paper, by David Jay Spyker

I finally put some drawings in the drawings section on my website; it’s only a handful, but it’s better than nothing.

I’ve also been playing with a new, clean color scheme, and updating some links. I wanted something more simple so I used whites and very pale greys for the background, and shades of grey for all text and borders. There is still a complete remake of the site in the works one day, which will include some things to make it easier to update, and a clean-up of some other issues that still exist. It will be some time yet before that happens, and maybe someday I will also get around to adding some more paintings.

My other project has been setting up this blog at its new sub-domain. Writings have been transferred over from my original blog, from the news section of davidjayspyker.com (that section no longer exists), and from notebooks and various loose sheets of paper covered in my chicken-scratchings.

The drawings are here.

Addendum: My main website went through a major overhaul in May, 2010, and all drawings have moved to their new listings at www.davidjayspyker.com

Kent Bellows stares back at the viewer from behind a table choked with food – greasy and sweet – drink, strands of pearls, an overturned human skull, and a very creepy baby doll with all of its hair pulled out. In his self-portrait, he almost dares us to challenge him at his Gluttony. The detail and craftsmanship in the painting is impeccable, and it begs to be inspected up close.

"Gluttony", 2000, by Kent Bellows (copyright the Kent Bellows estate)

Steven Assael challenges us again with his life size portraits of New York counter-culture club goers. In his huge, modern altarpiece, “At Mother”, figures adorned in leather, spikes, piercings and techno-punk-pagan-goth clothing are shown in scene, and, in an inset central section at home watching television.

"At Mother", 2001, by Steven Assael (copyright Steven Assael)

Julie Heffernan treats us to lavish, fanciful scenes in which she is transformed into women of mythical, mystical stature. Her use of color is glowing, and in each of her two representative pieces, flights of birds cleverly lead the eye through the paintings.

Tim Lowly’s autobiographical work, as always, leads us to contemplate our own lives by extension. His two atmospheric pieces are earlier works in egg tempera, and excellent examples of his oeuvre.

Martha Mayer Erlebacher brings the Renaissance to us in modern sensibilities with her richly dark painting style and allegorical figurative subject matter.

Other particular favorites include Richard Maury, Christian Vincent, Stone Roberts, Holly Lane, and Manon Cleary.

In all, the exhibition features fifty pieces by twenty-five prominent contemporary, figurative artists. Don’t miss it.

The Figure Revealed: Contemporary Figurative Paintings and Drawings runs May 3 – June 29, 2008 at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

"The Lost", 2000, 5 x 3 3/4 in., Acrylics on Hardboard

In representational art, a man or woman pondering the human skull is used to convey an awareness of mortality, or more accurately, mankind’s awareness of his own mortality. The presence of a human skull in painting is a reminder that each of us is here only for a short while, and that our time is indefinite and unknown.

The bird skull in “The Lost” is meant to remind us of the interconnectedness and mortality of every living being with which we share this ever-shrinking globe. It is tiny, fragile, easily overlooked; and while the bird is living, it is swift and fleeting, impossible to simply grasp in one’s hand.

I found this particular skull in a hedge row in my overgrown back yard. I looked down, and it was just lying there atop a single brown leaf in the midst of a patch of dead leaves, pale and ghostly in the near twilight like someone had carefully placed it there as an offering. I could easily have missed it, and stepped on it as I crept beneath the tangled branches. I knew I had to paint it.

“The Lost” is a small, simple painting. There is no one to ponder the skull; only the skull – painted in life size – hovers before you, the viewer. You are the philosopher, meant to think over this tiny thing. It is intended to engage you, and make you the human element to this painting.