Dale McEntire | Painting and Sculpture
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Dale’s Studio
Q&A with Dale
1. What is your chosen medium?
Oil Painting and Sculpture. I work in Cast Glass , Stone, Wood and Steel combined with sculpture.
2. How did you start your career in art?
My early training was at Mercer University, Macon GA. and I have had the opportunity to have several mentors over the years. Continued studies at Penland School of Craft.
3. What informs your art?
A movement of painters and sculptors identified as “Nature Symbolist” has inspired me to create work that is about the essential quality of nature. For me this is a spiritual essence that is underneath the obvious form and can be sensed with time and awareness. My goal is to refine my own personal language of this inner form and create an object of beauty and skill.
4. What jobs you have worked other than as a professional artist?
I have had numerous jobs related to art. Advertising and Display Manager with JCPenny, Freelance Graphic Design with Textile Company and various odd jobs to support my career as it developed.
5. What questions do you ask yourself when starting to work?
When approaching a landscape I try to have a few moments of quiet to allow myself to be connected to where I am. When I complete a session on location I practice giving it a bow of gratitude.
6. Do you have a quote that’s important to you displayed in your studio? If so, what is it?
“The best thing a human can do in life is to get rid of his separateness or selfness and hand himself over to the nature of things-- to this Universal Order that an artist must sense.”
Will Henry Stevens
7. Which artist (living or not) would you most like to invite for dinner? What would you serve?
I would like to have Arthur Dove to come and spend an afternoon with me and share his journey and insight on observing and expressing the power of our natural work in a visual form. My cooking skills are limited but we would be doing something vegetarian.
8. What has been your most unusual request for your art?
A gallery owner connected me to to a couple in GA. several years ago and I designed a sculptural work for their new home that he as an architect had designed . They only asked for a sculpture that would fit on a long cadenza and sent me a few photos of the home. I designed an abstract walnut , cast glass and metal sculpture about 4’ long and they agreed with the concept. I completed this over a 3-4 month period and carefully crated and shipped to them. We have yet to meet in person and it was a big project for both parties. Not a typical commission.
9. What music are you listening to these days?
Donna the Buffalo , Trevor Hall, Valerie June, Patti Smith
10. What is on your nightstand?
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver and The Dhammapada by Eknath Easwaran
“A movement of painters and sculptors identified as “Nature Symbolist” has inspired me to create work that is about the essential quality of nature. For me this is a spiritual essence that is underneath the obvious form and can be sensed with time and awareness. My goal is to refine my own personal language of this inner form and create an object of beauty and skill. Surface line and color are important elements I am engaged with. The paintings have steadily become more abstract as I interpret nature and its energy with goal of expressing place and experience.
As a sculptor I work with stone, steel, cast glass and wood. My work is conceptual interpretations of readings and ideals.”
About Dale
A native of Western North Carolina, Dale has been involved in the visual arts since his training at Mercer University, and has continued to evolve as an artist through private studies in the U.S. and Europe, and training at Penland School of Craft. His interest in the spiritual essence of nature can be seen in his use of color and form. Dale produces both oil and pastel paintings and sculpture (stone, steel, glass, bronze) out of his studio in Saluda, North Carolina. He is represented by galleries in Western North Carolina and the Southeast, and for the past several years has been selected to participate in public art events and outdoor sculpture shows. Dale is a member of Mountain Sculptors in Asheville, N.C. He teaches painting at Isothermal Community College.