We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David Zlotky a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, David thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Over the years, I’ve worked on many projects that I consider to be meaningful.

One piece I created was a non-commercial project for a close family member. My cousin Susie died tragically in her early 20’s as the result of an asthma attack. Of course, the family was heartbroken. My aunt was devastated by the loss of her daughter as was my cousin’s sister. I was
asked by my aunt to paint a portrait as a remembrance. I completed the oil portrait of Susie in the middle 1980’s and it hung on my aunt’s bedroom wall until her recent death at the age of 98. Through the years, every time we visited my aunt, she told me that the first thing she looked at upon awakening was the portrait of my cousin and how much it meant to her. That portrait of Susie is one of my most meaningful projects on a personal level.

Commercially, much of my work has been purchased by private collectors for their homes and offices. Any time someone purchases a print of one of my photographs I feel deeply honored.

One interesting project that comes to mind is a painting and photography project I did for a book that a famous American novelist was writing. Stephen Coonts contacted me to create an interesting character for the nose cowling of his bright yellow Stearman biplane named the
Cannibal Queen. I created the queen character and painted her on the nose cowling. Stephen stipulated a “semi-naked, sexy queen brandishing an arm bone in one hand”. After the piece of cowling was created and back on the airplane, Stephen flew “the Queen” to my hometown where
I photographed him and his son, David, for the book. It was a great experience in which I got to fly in the Queen after we completed the photography. That night my wife and I had Stephen over for an enjoyable dinner in which he shared some great stories about flying as a naval aviator. When the book, titled “The Cannibal Queen”, finally came out, I was sent an autographed copy and felt honored to see that the story about me creating the queen character was written into the book.

I’ve been fortunate to have done meaningful projects that have ended up in museums and on people’s walls. I’ve won some major international awards with my photography and painting, but these two examples are not ones I usually talk about. That said, each is very meaningful to me.

David, 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?

My name is David Zlotky and I’ve been a painter and fine art photographer for most of my adult life. During my college years and after graduating from the University of Kansas I was focused on building a career as an illustrator and fine art painter. Originally, I was very interested in creating fantasy paintings and illustrations for science fiction publications. As my skills developed, I also painted portraits to generate income. One of my portraits, an oil painting of Georgia Neese Clark, resides in the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri. She was the first female Secretary of the Treasury as a cabinet member in the Truman administration.

As a pilot and lover of aviation, I was inspired to create a painting for entry in a major art competition sponsored by the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum. The theme was “The Golden Age of Flight” which meant that any aviation subject that pertained to the time between the two world wars was fair game. My painting of a sporty couple having a picnic in the Flint Hills of Kansas in front of a Travel Air biplane in 1926 was selected as the second-place winner. The curators loved the romantic story that’s implied in the scene. The museum purchased the piece for its permanent collection and for years it hung in the office of the Director of the National Air & Space Museum. That honor means a lot to me because he had access to a vast array of original art from which to choose.

I was also selected to be a contributor to the Air Force Art Collection, headquartered in the Pentagon. This is a program in which selected civilian artists can trade experiences with the Air Force for donations of artwork to the Air Force collection. As a pilot, I wanted to fly in a jet fighter and got my wish when I flew in an F-4 Phantom out of McConnell AFB in Wichita,
Kansas. It was the ride of my life. Two of my paintings are now in the Air Force Art collection.

I’ve also been a photographer for many years. My artistic focus is now on fine art photography. My images have been exhibited in a number of juried shows, including several at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado and the MPLS Photography Center in Minneapolis. I am honored that my photographs have been purchased by numerous private
collectors. Professionally I’ve been a magazine art director producing all the studio photography for the publication, I’ve had my own design and photography business, and was the photographer for a busy advertising agency.

Now that I’ve retired, I spend a great deal of time on my fine art photography projects. Recently I’ve been focused on photographing rodeos. I love the look and feel of the small-town, open-air
events. Using an aesthetic forged by my years as a painter, capturing the action and interpreting the images during my editing process has enabled me to produce pieces that are uniquely artistic. Using a digital tablet, I literally draw and paint on the original image displayed on my large
monitor. I go to great lengths to isolate the battles that cowboys and cowgirls have with the bulls, broncs, and barrels; the ticking stopwatch is the ultimate judge. I print my rodeo images on canvas and surround them with frames that I build myself of solid oak, mahogany, and maple.
Each piece is part of a limited edition (signed and numbered) and comes with a registered certificate of authenticity.

Now that I’ve retired, I spend a great deal of time on my fine art photography projects. Recently I’ve been focused on photographing rodeos. I love the look and feel of the small-town, open-air events. Using an aesthetic forged by my years as a painter, capturing the action and interpreting the images during my editing process has enabled me to produce pieces that are uniquely artistic. Using a digital tablet, I literally draw and paint on the original image displayed on my large monitor. I go to great lengths to isolate the battles that cowboys and cowgirls have with the bulls, broncs, and barrels; the ticking stopwatch is the ultimate judge. I print my rodeo images on canvas and surround them with frames that I build myself of solid oak, mahogany, and maple. Each piece is part of a limited edition (signed and numbered) and comes with a registered
certificate of authenticity.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

One of the most rewarding aspects of being an artist or creative for me is a very simple one: many years of being a visual artist have trained me to be especially sensitive to the extraordinary nature of the world that many of us take for granted without much notice. I find great pleasure in seeing those things as do so many of my fellow artists. It’s a state of mind that comes with the process of creating art.

I can take great pleasure in seeing a beautiful cloud formation or the flight of a vulture riding a thermal so efficiently that it won’t flap a wing to stay aloft for minutes. I don’t need to have a camera to fully appreciate those things.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I think resilience is a quality that anyone that is to become a successful artist must possess. The learning process, although life-long, was especially difficult in the early years when I first became truly committed to building a life as a successful painter and photographer. As I started painting seriously, I was very excited by the work I was doing. The pieces were creative and visually stunning. I remember looking at one painting that I had just finished. It was about La Catalina: a sorceress in a book by Carlos Castaneda. Castaneda wrote about his experiences being trained in the ways of Yaqui Indian magic by his mentor and teacher, Don Juan. The Castaneda books were very popular in the early 1970’s.

I had the painting of the sorceress propped up against a wall in my room as the light of a full moon streamed in through my open window. The room lights were off, so the painting was being lit only by the pale light of the moon. As I sat on the floor staring at what I had made, I was overwhelmed by the sense of magic and power that I had infused into my painting of La
Catalina.

I became obsessed with honing my craft, trying to learn anything I could about painting. I bought and read many books on technique, composition, and style. The more analytical I became about the “how”, the more I lost the spark that fueled the inspired work that I had been producing when
I was naive about all the “rules”. I lost the thing that Zen masters call “Beginner’s Mind”: a state in which everything is a new discovery.

The result of getting so serious about technique was that I started analyzing everything I was doing with a paintbrush. I started overworking my attempts at new paintings and would often reach a point in which I realized I’d ruined the piece after many hours invested. At the high point
of this self-imposed misery I actually drove over our nearby river and threw a portrait that I had worked on for many hours over the edge of the bridge (littering, I know, not cool but I was so passionate about it at the time).

That was a hard time in which I had temporarily lost what had been so exciting when I painted with my heart instead of my mind.

I had to work through that sense of loss and keep going. Because of resilience, I was able to get through a very tough period of feeling that I had lost the magic and ultimately was able to create a painting that would be purchased by the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.davidzlotkyphotography.com
• Instagram: @davidzlotkyphotography
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavidZlotkyPhotography

Image Credits
Gary Jones for my portrait