Please come and meet our featured artist for January and February. Complimentary light tapas will be provided along with all drinks at Happy Hour prices at the Bar, 4-7pm. About the artist:
William McClure Bio
My name is William McClure. I grew up in Montgomery, a small town outside of Charleston, West Virginia. Montgomery is a lovely river town tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains. Even as a small child, I was amazed and excited by all types of visual art. Although Montgomery was positioned in a beautiful setting, I knew it was my destiny to move on to develop my artistic skills and to chase my true passion of a career based around my Art.
After I graduated from High School I began that very journey. I moved to Charleston and then on to Roanoke, Virginia. Roanoke provided great opportunities for further development of my photographic skills. I met many interesting and artistic people there. I attended Virginia Western Community College for numerous photography courses. There I met a very creative and open minded inspirational person, my Professor, Martin Church. He brought very positive influences to my photography and pushed me to be more creative and to see images that could only be captured by the camera and my eye.
In 2000 I decided it was time yet again, to move on to experience new challenges and to find new opportunities to perfect and display my work. I moved to our amazing capitol city, Washington, DC. It was an excellent choice. Almost everyday I would stroll through parts of the city to check out the lay of the land and to search out new inspiration. I walked along the streets for hours just taking it all in. After a couple of years I decided to do something to augment my photography. I stopped in to a local art supply store and purchased my very first blank canvas and acrylic paints.
An entirely new artistic door opened for me on that day and again my life changed with this amazing new medium to express myself. One day while creating a painting outdoors, a leaf drifted onto my wet painting. I didn’t know how I was going to get it out without disturbing the new paint. I looked to the side and saw the can of compressed air I had used to clean my camera and thought, I should give this a try. To my amazement when I sprayed the air on the canvas it created, an incredibly interesting and brilliant texture - and so was born - the method I now use to create my paintings.
I now work with compressed air to move the paint around until the image feels pleasing to me. After hours of manipulating the paint on the canvas with the compressed air, my favorite part may be to watch it dry, as the colors develop their deep rich final color. I create the art by using acrylics of varying thickness and viscosity. The canvas is laid upon a flat surface, usually a table. My motivation typically is a personal feeling or an experience inspired by colors and patterns I find in nature and also in fabrics utilized in women’s clothing and home decor.