There's only one New York and I consider it to be my hometown. It was the city of hopes and dreams for my grandparents when they left Europe, and it's a great source of inspiration for me today. Daily life is continually enriched by the city's incredible range of peoples, religions, societies and communities. Yet all of this diversity only affirms the important things that all of us have in common. From street musicians to the Metropolitan Opera, off-off Broadway, jazz, poetry and dance, there's never a shortage of creative talent eager to perform. The eccentric, flamboyant, original characters that live here make it even more fun and interesting. Energy and creativity reverberates into the streets where ordinary objects are often transformed into works of art.
According to Michelangelo, art is "a shadow of the divine perfection". The human figure has fascinated and inspired artists throughout history. From cave drawings done 15,000 years ago to digital renderings done today, artists have continually tried to capture the essence of the human form. In my opinion, figure drawing ability is one of the few objective standards by which a visual artist can be judged. There's a great place in New York called Spring Studio in Soho, where figure drawing takes place seven days a week. Founded by Minerva Durham, Spring Studio has become a gathering place for experienced artists as well as beginners from around the world. Her dedication to promoting skill and craftsmanship through figure study and anatomy gives Spring Studio a rare and spirited atmosphere. There's so much that can be learned from studying the figure. It's a magnificently crafted mechanism possessing balance, unity, simplicity, grace, movement and character. What could be more perfect?
In her poem "Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day" Nikki Giovanni writes: I share with the painters the desire To put a three-dimensional picture On a one dimensional surface. Since the time of Euclid, artists and scientists have been figuring out ways to accomplish just this. As in any other industry, tools and machines have been invented over the years to make the process easier. Even something as simple as the invention of small metal paint tubes made it possible for the impressionists to take their work outdoors. There are many examples of labor saving devices used by artists. Dürer used a machine to plot perspective, Van Gogh used a large gauge for doing landscapes, Vermeer used a camera obscura, Ingres used a camera lucida and Eakins used photographs. Just like in other industries, tools for artists have gotten better and more advanced over the years. Today, computer graphics and digital technology are further expanding the capabilities of visual artists, opening up tremendous new possibilities that have never been available before.
	Growing up in Brooklyn, I spent a lot of time in the Brooklyn Museum. They had a great art school, and I was lucky enough to take classes there starting at a young age. In early elementary school I remember working on projects with materials like colored paper, clay, tempera paint, wood, fabric, plastic and paper mâché. (I have all those materials and more in my studio today.) A little later on, I took drawing classes where I would roam the museum's galleries, drawing pictures of the artwork on exhibit. I drew pictures of Egyptian sculptures, African masks and Native American totem poles. I also took sculpture classes in the same studio where my mother had taken classes many years before. In high school, I studied painting with a teacher named Francis Cunningham. At a time in my life when I was very unsure of myself, he confirmed and validated my decision to be an artist. He taught me how to stretch canvases, use a plumb line and mix colors. He taught his students to observe the world without preconceptions and to be open to the surprising, unexpected, unnamable qualities of nature. He was my first link to a movement in American Art which is an important part of my background.
Francis Cunningham was a student of Edwin Dickinson, who was a student of Charles W. Hawthorne, who in turn was a student of William Merritt Chase. William Merritt Chase did landscape paintings in Prospect Park, in some of the very same places where I painted as a teenager. His studio was on 10th street. Now, mine is on 4th Street. As one of the most important teachers of his day, Chase brought many of the sophisticated European traditions to America. With roots going back to Velasquez and Hals, he used impressionistic light and colors to portray scenes form every day life. Thomas Hart Benton, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, Reginald Marsh, Stuart Davis and Isabel Bishop are some of the artists who were directly influenced by him. They did paintings and drawings of Coney Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, buildings in my neighborhood, subway stations that I use constantly, and the types of New York characters that I know very well. Their distinctly American vision is something I wish to continue and take further.
	Advertising, graphic design and printing are big industries in New York. Like many young artists just starting out, I learned to do paste-ups and mechanicals to earn a living. For years, I created charts and graphs for corporate annual reports with a rapidograph, I operated several stat cameras and learned to spec type. Of course, these skills have long since been replaced by computers. But what started out as merely a day job, ended up exposing me to ideas about art and design that I might never have encountered otherwise. Over the years, I've adopted many of the tools and techniques that I learned in graphic design studios to my own work. I never wanted to be a designer myself, but as a production person, I've enjoyed working with some really great designers. One of the designers whom I was most impressed by was Tom Geismar. His clarity of vision and eloquent statement has been a major influence in the design world over the last 40 years. Tom Geismar was a student of Joseph Albers, who was originally a teacher at the Bauhaus. According to Bauhaus principles, it's harder to design a first-rate chair then to paint a second rate painting and much more useful. At the Bauhaus, practical industrial skills were considered side by side with fine art. As a painter, I feel I owe a lot to the lessons I learned from graphic design. Good graphic design is essentially a solution to a problem. The designer's challenge is to present a clear, concise statement, which can be easily understood at a glance. A really good designer does this with elegance, wit and nuance. I hope put these qualities into my work as well.
Andy Reiss, another one of my teachers, is an artist whose work I greatly admire. He would often say to his students: "Process is more important then product." Although I do a lot of studies and sketches in preparation for my paintings, at some point there's always the inevitable "flow" state, which can't be predicted. It's the part of the process where everything else becomes irrelevant and the joy of painting takes over. So many creative people will say that they almost feel like a vessel, or conduit through which the creative message flows, emanating from some higher place. We feel the urge to construct our own little model of the outside world, a replica that mimics the dramas, conflicts and harmonies of real life. I think this is what Picasso was talking about when he said: "Art is a lie which helps us see the truth." And although reflecting on the world around me is one of my goals as an artist, it's only part of the total picture. When asked, "Do you paint from nature?" Jackson Pollock replied, "I am nature." The original, unique spark that comes from within is something that can't be explained or defined, but I hope I'm able to use that energy to communicate with and inspire others. Daniel Jay 2003