Gary’s Studio - video to come

Q&A with Gary

1. What is your chosen medium?

Oil paint, mainly, but also watercolor, gouache, and charcoal.

2. How did you start your career in art?

I attended The College for Creative Studies in Detroit.  I studied mainly illustration as well as fine art classes in the basics of drawing and painting.  Immediately on graduating, I joined a large Detroit art studio and began my illustration career.

3. What informs your art?

I paint what I like.  As simple as that.  I am always inspired by other artists, be they photographers, painters, sculptors, whatever.  It seems the moody emotional work speaks to me the most.

4. What jobs you have worked other than as a professional artist?

I worked in print shops, factories and even UPS while going to art school.  Once completing college, I became a professional artist.

5. What questions do you ask yourself when starting to work?

What is this about?  Sometimes I try to get a mental picture in my mind of the finished piece and work towards that.  Other times I just start and let it happen.  The let it happen approach is the most satisfying, but also has the most scrape-offs and restarts.

6. Do you have a quote that’s important to you displayed in your studio?  If so, what is it?  

“One day at a time.”

7. Which artist (living or not) would you most like to invite for dinner? What would you serve?

I think David Hockney would be an endlessly entertaining guest.  I’ve  always loved the way he looks at the world through his painting.  Graphic, colorful, with a little sarcastic humor thrown in.  Our styles couldn’t be more different.

8.  What has been your most unusual request for your art?

As an illustrator for over 40 years, I’ve had some very weird commissions. The weirdest and most distasteful, was from Hustler magazine.  I’m not going to tell you what it was, suffice it to say, I turned it down.  I’m happy to say they did not call again.

9. What music are you listening to these days?

This is an ever changing thing.  Michael Kiwanuka, Ry Cooder, and , Billie Eilish, are the most recent listens.

10. What is on your nightstand?

I have no bedside table, but there is a shelf on the headboard where I keep books.  Right now I have Peter Heller’s Celine and an Alan Furst WW2 Novel.  I can’t wait for the library to reopen, so I can go browse for more.