The Beginning Painting

BRIEF HISTORY OF JOHN SPEARS ARTWORK I established my first large scale 5,000 sq. ft. studio in the late ‘70’s in San Francisco. The structure was the old Hamm’s brewery building, one of many warehouse buildings abandoned in the South of Market area at the time. I was one of the first artists to set up shop in what was to become the SoHo of the West Coast which eventually morphed into the Designer Mart District. I first began my exploration of the silk screen as a printing process and created a fabric line for the wholesale trade. Eventually, I discovered that it could be much more than just printing but rather a painting medium in which each canvas became a unique painting. After completing 4,000 yards for Apple’s original headquarters in Cupertino I became disenchanted with just printing. I decided to move to Santa Fe and began to explore the silk screen as a painting medium. I also became director of Shidoni, a 5,000 sq. ft. interior gallery and an eight acre sculpture garden. Shidoni is also a foundry that cast bronze sculptures for artists nationally. The artists were mostly emerging sculptors whom many became established artists of today. I still keep in touch with a number of the artists I now consider friends and traded a number of my screened paintings for their sculptures. By the mid 80’s, I moved to New Jersey where I began to create site-specific art commissions for major buildings that were rising throughout the region. Public art was needed for the numerous “monuments to architects” which were cold and indifferent to the people who worked in the buildings or individuals who simply passed through the lobbies. The site-specific art approach merged massive architectural space with the artist’s personal art work to soften the “cold interiors”. My work continued to evolve into a more solitary exploration of art works that stood alone without consideration to its environment. This has been my main concern for the last twenty years. For those who take the opportunity to see the current retrospective show (see: home page for a 3-minute video or see the footer below) you’ll see the transformation of the imagery since 1978. The show is being leased for the next five years so many others will have the chance to witness how the silk screen has been my focus in the art work I create and how I took the medium into another dimension beyond simply printing.