We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brad Teare. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brad below.

Alright, Brad thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

In the early days of my career, earning a living from artistic endeavors was challenging, but at 22, I decided I would no longer accept work that didn’t have a creative component. Although some of the jobs I took seemed like detours, the aggregate effect was a continued expansion of my creative abilities. I worked as a graphic designer, a technical illustrator, a hologram sculptor, and an early adopter of Photoshop and Illustrator. All these preceded my career as an illustrator, which began when I was 32.

The various creative jobs gave me the flexibility and proper mental health to prepare a portfolio for what was soon the be a burgeoning illustration career. When I moved to New York, my experience in creative fields gave me the confidence to approach the New York Times and receive an assignment on my first day in the city. Ultimately I knew I wanted to be a fine art painter, but I needed to figure out what form that would take.

My illustration career provided me with an experimental path suited to my personality. As an illustrator, I did book cover illustrations in acrylic, scratchboard illustrations, wood engravings, and woodcuts. The fields included literary and mainstream fiction, children’s books, comics, and graphic novels. I gradually expanded my fine art repertoire by printing multi-block color woodcuts of the Hudson Valley landscape. I had a brief career as a fine art woodcut artist before transitioning to painting impressionist landscapes with palette knives.

After all those years, I have a thriving paint career I can explore for decades. There have been moments when I wished I could have arrived where I am now sooner, but my methods would not be as rich and developed if I hadn’t followed a diverse, prolonged path to my current style.

Brad, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

In 1998, I turned my hand to landscape painting with renewed vigor. I was still illustrating, but I rented a painting studio and painted there five days a week, painting an average of six hours a day. I got my first gallery in 2000 and am currently represented in six galleries across the West.

As I developed my landscape style, I continued creating color woodcuts and experimenting with abstract acrylic painting. While painting abstracts, I shifted to working with various palette knives. After my experimentation in abstraction ended, I started using the knives in my landscape work, slowly evolving an impasto style that often felt more like sculpting. I pursued using highly textured paint until I landed on my current style.

At first, my reputation was regional, but it gradually expanded to include a group show at the Salmagundi Club in 2019, winning a prize with the American Impressionist Society in 2021 and appearing in ads and articles in a variety of national and international art magazines. In 2022 I was invited to the Quest for the West show at the Eideljorg museum in Indianapolis, which significantly boosted my career.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Although I always had an obsession with creativity, I wasn’t necessarily a promising art student or particularly blessed with native talent. But I did have the gift of tenacity. I was always pursuing one creative project or another. Later I learned that my problems with sticking to projects or being a good student of art stemmed from a syndrome I have that is typically called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. It could be a better description because it has too many misperceptions surrounding it, and it isn’t an attention disorder but an attention anomaly. I could focus my attention with laser-like intensity on a subject that fascinated me. But a topic that didn’t catch my eye had no hope of ever getting my attention. Some artists can focus on a narrow slice of the artistic pie and remain focused for decades. Those are the ones exhibiting artist skills of Olympic caliber. Due to the variety of attention I could lend, my artistic contribution was destined to be different.

It would have been good to know I had ADHD earlier in my career. I could have gained further insights into my personality via the Myers-Briggs and Big Five personality tests. These tests and testing for ADHD give insights into how much energy one has and how that energy unfolds, directly affecting how your creative life will manifest itself.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

When people enter a well-furnished room and see a fabulous painting, they want to get closer. Such magnetism is a powerful emotional gift to the viewer. If they see an original—not a poster or mechanical reproduction—they witness firsthand the journey of the artist’s mind and hand embodied in a physical artifact. To be in the presence of such authenticity evokes an energy that transforms a glance into an experience.

Supporting an Olympic team or orchestra denotes sympathy for excellence. Supporting artists who create world-class art signifies a similar kinship. Surrounding yourself with inspiring friends deepens and enriches your life. In like fashion, original art inspires and uplifts. Supporting excellence builds a vibrant culture that benefits all and becomes the superstructure for an intelligent and meaningful society.

Much of the modern world is visually fatiguing–the tangle of telephone lines, billboards, and urban signage exhausts the viewer–like exposure to constant noise. A selection of original paintings offsets the eye-lacerating effects of the modern world and provides a visual oasis to recharge and refresh the mind. Imagination constitutes a large part of our lives, and original paintings are a potent way to keep the vision alive and vibrant.

You realize that although aspects of life can seem mundane, the sense of being alive is fostered by acts of significance. By collecting original art, you participate in the venerable tradition as a patron of the arts. Art fostered today becomes the cultural legacy of tomorrow. People who buy art make future paintings possible. People who collect art expand their cultural contribution and make a real difference.

You realize that those who excel embrace creativity—doctors, lawyers, homemakers, or craftsmen, and creativity seeks to expand and magnify all human experience. It is the invisible value that rescues any effort from the mundane. You understand this process and intuitively surround yourself with people and objects that enhance your engagement with creativity. Paintings are tangible witnesses to your belief in creativity.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://bradteare.com/blog/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradteare/
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• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BradTeare