Biography - Jack Bledsoe

My Approach to Making Art
The way I work comes from a need to be involved in the process of making art. Is it a trance, a practice, a diversion? It is who I am and the final outcome is not the purpose for my working; it’s a result of being lost in a process that is me.

I am process oriented when I am working in the studio. I initially have a direction for the outcome of a painting but when the process takes over I get lost in the work.

Within the process choices are made repeatedly. Whatever the medium may be – paint, collage, pastels – I choose color and begin. Whatever the subject may be – figure, landscape, abstraction – paint is applied, having been mixed for a color, to become a part of a larger expression. I am the vehicle to make the paint do something. Here the paint can be tightly controlled to become a part of other colors; there it can be randomly and freely allowed to work its way onto the surface.  

At a specific moment within the process of making art, how much control I have and the why of what is happening have always been a mystery to me. As I have continued to be involved with the making of art, I find that I am less critical of the end product and more appreciative of the practice and the process of making art. I am awed and blessed by the mysterious workings of the process and the pleasure I find in playing out this part of me
Jack

Education

B.F.A., University of Illinois,  Champaign, IL (1960).
B.S. in Medical Illustration,  University of Illinois, Chicago, IL (1965).
M.F.A. in Painting,  American University, Washington, D. C. (1971).

Interests
Hospice volunteer, Warriors, adventure travel, opera, theater, contra dancing, gardening, carpentry.

Other
Jack Bledsoe is a former Art Teacher at Walter Johnson High School and other sites. Numerous students taught by
Jack F. Bledsoe have gone on to become prominent authors, artists and performers.

Put your cursor on the images in the filmstrip above to view larger photos of Jack at work.