Paintings
John Schneider
About
I've been making paintings for over thirty years. Recently, I've been working small, making the work quite literally by hand, without the use of brushes but with my fingers and the occasional palette knife. I work in acrylic on either stretched canvas or small plywood panel squares.
In the early years I worked large with the figure, but then gradually moved toward abstraction, with color, rhythm, and response becoming most important. Usually, some often hidden element of landscape, especially mountains and water keeps coming back. I grew up in the gentle, dominant presence of the Wrangell moutains in rural Alaska. People were very small compared to the landscape in general and the mountains in particular. I seldom if ever work directly from looking at nature. Finding it perfect in an of itself, I watch it closely. I then let it influence me from the inside out as I am part of it.
Education
I attended five colleges along the way, receiving an English Literature degree from Gordon College in 1980. I discovered the arts through helping my brother out at his college's theater. Soon after that, I was bitten by the drawing bug when I had the chance to study drawing with an old master, Conger Metcalf, at Gordon College. After college, I began taking painting courses at the Museum school in Boston, and continued to do so until I'd gotten what I wanted. Kaji Aso taught me his approach to color, and Gerry Bergstein encouraged me to work large.
Work
I supported myself by painting houses from the age of sixteen. It was work that came naturally and I found that it gave me time to think. Once I began making paintings seriously and had a studio, I could tuck myself away and work there on rainy days. The house painting also contributed a kind of body knowledge to my studio work. I'd notice small details of rhythm and pacing, and in the layering of color in the faux work I did, that I could then use at the studio. Around the age of forty my fortunes and life changed; My partner and I had a son whom I took care of nearly full time, and I began selling paintings seriously for the first time.
Endnote
Several years back, a flood of writing began to come when I was experiencing a dry spell with my painting. I wrote down old fertile memories, and a few reflections on my more recent life. I have been told it is of interest, so I include some of that work on its own page.