Thank you for your interest in my work. My web site, www.davidwilliamterry.com, tells you much about me and my work, and, if you haven’t already, I invite you to spend some time exploring the pages there. 

I am writing to introduce myself more directly and share some of what makes me tick as an artist. I will periodically get inspired to share stories about myself and about my work, which I will share with you and others on my mailing list. 

My Journey

I was not a child prodigy. I didn’t believe I had even average talent for art until I was in college. Neither of my parents were artists, and I didn’t have a favorite relative who nurtured and taught me how to paint like the Masters. I wish I had, but alas, no. I was planning to be Bob Dylan. 

My first course at Colorado College proved to be a life changer. It was a summer-long Institute of Photography, taught by a Time/Life photographer and his assistant, a professor of photography at a major university.

The first assignment was to take a portrait. I found an old man in the city park near campus and, after talking a bit, I asked him if he would pose for me. I remember him evading me a bit, and telling me stories of being a magician. He pulled a quarter out of my ear. After a bit, I started taking pictures of him while he talked. 

I went back to the darkroom, developed the film, made a contact sheet, chose the frame, and made an 11x14” black and white print, which I mounted and turned in for the assignment. 

The next morning we students showed up to find all of our photographs displayed on the wall. The main teacher gently critiqued all the photographs and gave constructive ways each of us could improve. 

When he got to mine, however, he was embarrassingly  effusive with his compliments. I didn’t know what to make of it, but after class he took me aside and said I really had a gift for portraiture, and that I should pursue it. 

Well, I did, . . . eventually.

Old Friends

A couple of years after the photography class, I gathered up my savings from working in restaurants and bicycle shops, and went to Europe. As I travelled around, mostly alone, I found myself going to Museums as a way to connect with familiar friends — paintings I’d studied and seen in slide shows. 

I had taken an art history class in high school, taught by the basketball, baseball coach and American History teacher — who also happened to have a PhD in Art History from Harvard. His dissertation was about John Singer Sargent, one of the greatest portrait painters of the last few centuries. 

The paintings I’d studied came to life on the walls of these great Museums. The portraits, those of Rembrandt, Van Dyke, Sargent, Velasquez, Renoir, and many others grabbed and held my attention. I found myself saying, “I want to do that!” 

My Sabbatical

The Photography Institute took place in 1977.  I’d been to Europe and became inspired to learn to paint in 1979. However, I didn’t get serious about pursuing visual art as a possible career until I was about to graduate in 1981. By that time I had found great joy in copying drawings of Masters. I drew and sketched during much of my spare time. 

I took my drawings to the Art Department and asked if there was any place they could recommend for me to continue studying traditional, representational art. They said no. The only institutions they knew of would be more about selling things or talking about art. I was doing more traditional art than I would be at any of the places they knew of.

Remember, this was a world without the internet. It turns out there were a few small art schools where I probably could have received excellent training, but I didn’t find them. 

As it was, I spent a few years trying to find a way to scrape a living from art, drawing pen and ink renderings of peoples’ houses, and hanging out with illustrators to see if I could learn a bit from them. 

Eventually, by 1983 I let my father talk me into going to Law School in Houston, Texas. I graduated, got my license, clerked for an appellate court, then joined my father’s law firm in Dallas, which he had founded in 1961.  I practiced law until January of 2003, when I decided it was time I got back to my work as an artist. 

I’m very proud of the work I did as a lawyer. I know my work helped some people. I’m also proud of receiving the highest ratings from other lawyers and judges. I’ve kept my law license, and occasionally I still find an opportunity to help someone with it. But mostly I paint.

Back to Work

Since 2003 I have devoted myself to professional portraiture. Once I began trying to support my family, I realized that I desperately needed more training. While I had been commissioned to paint a number of portraits prior to 2003, including official portraits for two retired members of the Texas Supreme Court, I knew I needed to learn more before I could hold myself out as a top portrait artist. 

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” And he did. Mine came in the form of a friend who had been painting portraits professionally for a number of years. For the next four years, I studied under his direction. Eventually I found myself wanting to develop my own style, so I struck out. 

Since then, I have stayed busy painting, mostly portraits. I feel very fortunate to be able to make a living doing what I love. However, my greatest satisfaction is when a family gathers around one of my portraits and uses my painting as a way to connect with each other and with their sense of importance to one another. My painting becomes a part of the family, and in all likelihood, will serve as an important emblem of the family for many generations.

My other hope is that someday a young person will come along one of my paintings and feel called to learn how to paint portraits. We live amidst so much that our forebears have given us. I hope to pass something of value along. 

 

Sincerely, 

David W Terry

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