Today we’d like to introduce you to Doug Foltz.

Hi Doug, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?

I’ve been drawing and painting since I was kid and that’s what I do now – that’s how people know me. But more importantly I think… I’ve been exploring. Not just the amazing salty, coastal places I’ve been lucky enough to know… but the way those places – and the challenges they represent – make me feel.

I’ve always loved a challenge… something that pushes me to try something new or different. I’m not sure whether its the fact that I get bored pretty easily, but putting myself in positions that require me to grow, or shift, always seems to pay off… both professionally, and creatively.

I started my professional life as an architect, moved pretty quickly to the life of a designer of all sorts of things… graphic, industrial, interiors… anything that followed that path of really getting to the essence of what something needed to feel like and then working like hell to make that feeling real. When I decided, some 25 years or so ago, that fine art – painting and photography – was where I wanted to be, that was the same driver… expressing the essence of what a place makes me feel.

I now live on the Northwest Florida Coast with my wife and my dog, still keep a home in Atlanta where I had a studio for years, and I get to work everyday, here… in a studio that’s specifically designed to let me keep exploring.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

As a rule, I think smooth roads are to be avoided. No bumps… no interest, or change, or growth. It’s hard to indulge an addiction to exploration if there’s nothing new to explore, so yeah… bumps are important.

Some of them have certainly been with the art itself – creative blocks, having to execute in a new medium, getting over a bad review… but a lot of them have been outside the creative end of being a painter. Business management bumps, financial bumps, relationship bumps… learning to get out of your own way or learning to open up more to others. All of those things force you to work hard and work smart, but more importantly they force you to stretch… and when you do that, you almost always find there is more to you than you knew. I like that feeling.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?

As a painter, I work in oils. I love the transparency and the light they allow me. And I love to work big. Most of the subject matter I work with is big – storms, skyscapes and wide open landscapes. Those are the places I love and the they really lend themselves to big work.

As a photographer, I simply work with light – as all photographers do. Photography/Light-writing. And, in both mediums I work a lot on composition and simplicity. Finding a view that is clear and simple and working with light to stay true to that view and to amplify the way the light makes you feel.

In both cases, I think the root is working a lot to just “see.” Our world is full of incredibly interesting views – of big things and small – and working to simply notice those things, to “see” them is the first step.

I think that approach to the visual world is what ive become know for and its certainly what I want to continue to do.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?

If I can offer anything to someone starting out as a creative, or really in any field, it’s simply… don’t stop. The goal isn’t to “get there”… to “make it” … and if you start working toward that you’re in trouble. The goal is to simply to continue… to keep on toward where your energy is. Sure, set goals and keep moving toward them, but is the moving, not the arrival that’s the reward. Focus on the verbs, and the nouns will take care of themselves.

Pricing:

• Oils on Canvas from $4,000 to $24,000
• Photography from $700 to $3,000

Contact Info:

• Website: DougFoltz.com or SaltCrustStudios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dougfoltz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doug.foltz.35
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dougfoltz1138