Artists' Statement

For an artist, art is not a choice; it is something that must come out.  It is your true expression of yourself and it begins at an early age.  For me, I have been drawing and painting for as long as I can remember, but it was in middle school that I really started to consider myself an artist and began to find a path.  It all really started with photography I fell in love with the viewfinder of the camera and the ability to create such perfect images within it.  Soon my unique ability to convert the world of color into black and white in my head became clear, I quickly learned how to see and deal with color in a whole new way.  As I followed my heart into the world of photography I began to find my style, I love the intricacies and perfections of nature.  I found myself needing to get as close to it as I could to focus in on small sections of the natural world, to show people the world in a different way. Even today I use art as a way to slow people down to stop and take a minute to appreciate the amazing place we live.  The Northwest has always been one of the best places to share and grow my creative spirit, life is different up here than anywhere I have been, it is easier to slow down and appreciate the gifts we have been given. 

Quickly I started to see my photographic style translate into my drawings and paintings.  In high school I began to play with all the different media that they had to offer, before my senior year was over I had finished every art class the school had to offer multiple times over.  It became clear that I was going to follow this path of art thru college and my career, so the administration worked with me to create new classes to challenge my creative drive and create a portfolio of high enough quality to grant my acceptance into a highly accredited art college in California, The Laguna College of Art and Design located in Laguna Beach, Ca.  As I toured around different art schools along the west coast I visited many great programs but fell in love with the quality of the art, and the atmosphere of the small school in Laguna, it had a very closely knit student body with only 450 students I felt it was a great fit for me.

 When I interviewed there, they had a full sized well equipped dark room that was not getting much use, I would have all the access I wanted to it, unfortunately over the summer it had been remodeled into a highly competitive graphic design program.  With this new change my vision became focused on painting, I chose illustration as my major and by my junior year I had begun to hone my skills as an oil painter. After four years, I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus in environmental oil paintings. 

The more I worked with oils the more I loved the feel of the oils the bounce of the brush on the canvas, the layers and mixing of colors.  There is a beautiful amount of light that can be created thru the layers of oils, it all begins with the under painting which is used to work out the lines and values of a painting, it adds another layer of warmth and depth to the image.  Color is added after the under painting is finished with layer upon layer of different shades and hues all while trying to use as few brush strokes as possible to keep it from becoming overworked.  Sometimes the under painting strikes me in such a way that I feel it is finished and if I were to add color I would loose the freshness and light that glows thru from the white canvas below at this point I stop.  These have become some of my favorite paintings.  Often the under painting can be much more difficult than a full color painting there is just the one chance.  They have a similar feel to finding the perfect shot with a camera; they are raw and natural with only light and dark to draw the viewer in.  Over the years I have been torn between my two loves, photography and painting, but have recently come to a place where I can really enjoy both worlds and let them play back and forth off of each other.   With a recent move back to the Northwest I have been artistically refueled and inspired to push my artistic drive where ever it may take me.                          

Taylor Reed