Visual Language Magazine Contemporary Fine Art Vol 4 No 1

VL
Andy Baird
“The Value of Line”
I was born in Denver, Colorado. There is a thing
about being a long-time Colorado family, so I like
to point out that I am a fifth-generation Colorado
native. The first Baird came here in 1867. Colorado
has always been my home, and I cannot think of
any other place as home.
I knew I would be an artist when I was seven. I used
to watch my aunt paint horses, and I won a schoolwide
art contest in second grade. After high school,
I went to a commercial art school. I discovered a
love for oils and figure painting, and I went to the
University of Northern Colorado for my degrees in
Art Education.
As a freshman, I ended up in graduate-level painting
courses, along with a few required under-grad
courses. By my sophomore year I had to catch up
on required courses, one of which was ceramics.
I was not happy, until I learned that ceramics involved
using a wheel and kilns. I loved working on
the wheel and my painting fell by the wayside. My
master’s project was on Native American pottery,
and I figured out the secret to Maria Martinez’s metallic-black
hand-polished finish. My pots were hand
polished, disassembled and reassembled, resulting
in ancient look.
By the time I became a high school teacher, galleries
were selling my high-end pottery. Robert Redford
bought my first pot sold in my Santa Fe gallery,
and that got me national attention.
When blown-glass overtook the pottery market,
I returned to painting, always looking for current
trends. When I travel, I visit galleries and look for
interesting and intriguing art. I like to get the pulse
of what the nation is thinking.
I had a student so advanced that he needed new,
challenging assignments. He made excellent contour
drawings, so I asked him to “draw” a face by
scribbling, without an outline, using chalk pastels.
This became a standard assignment in my advanced
drawing classes. I was inspired to work with
the technique myself, using liquid paint.
http://bairdstudios.com/
My high school let me paint in an empty classroom
in the summer. I spread canvases on the floor and
walked on them, experimenting with different paints
and tools. Dribbling paint prevented the precision
needed for small subjects, so I worked on large
canvases. My process evolved into walking around
a stretched canvas, better control over the streaming,
being able to visualize the image from a distance,
and creating fun, new images. My first show
was a success, so I felt that I was working on the
right art at the right time.
My paintings are sometimes compared to Jackson
Pollack’s. Long before I started this technique, I
had seen reproductions of Pollack’s paintings, and
I did not care for them. After seeing Pollack’s original
work, I became an absolute fan. I love how the
many layers of paint create depth to his paintings.
There is also a connection to Chuck Close, whose
pixel-like sections compose portraits, and Georges-Pierre
Seurat, who used dots of paint to compose
scenes. Optical blending enables the perception
of the image. I might call my work “Seurat
meets Jackson Pollack meets Chuck Close”.
My work is a branch of the American Pop Art tradition,
similar to Warhol’s Campbell Soup cans. I
talked to friends, clients, and artists, and noticed
what is popular in check-out lines. That led me to
deliberately work with a glamour look, almost the
commercial look from fashion magazines. I follow
the overall Pop Art philosophy, putting art in daily
life, off the pedestal.
I’m selective about the images needed for that
“look”. I’m inspired by ads, photos with the right
light, shade and image, or students or friends with
promising faces. Whatever the source, it’s up to me
to create the look of popular culture in my paintings.
I also paint images of things that had a big impact
on my teenage years – the Statue of Liberty, the
Campbell’s Soup can. I met Andy Warhol at a show
in Denver. Warhol wrote a dedication to me in a
copy of his book (Andy Warhol from A to B and Back
Again), “To Andy from Andy”, with a little Campbell’s
Soup can drawing. Meeting him made such an impression
on me, and that’s why I’m so glad to be
able to exhibit the Pop art character of my work.
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