David Sparks

Bio

While still in college at age 21, David had entered his first art fair in Oak Park, Illinois. His professional art career selling watercolor paintings on the streets had begun and continued around Chicago and Northwestern Indiana for several years. This experience allowed him to create and market sellable work, but the income did not permit him to make a living. His degree in art education allowed him to teach visual art, and that seemed to work as he supported his family. He returned to college to pursue his MA in studio art at Ball State University. As a graduate assistant, he worked with classes in drawing, painting and art education. He worked in his studio space at Ball State and began to express his own “life journey” through large acrylic paintings. It was at this time when he created an anthropomorphic character named Quest. He also created a new way of expressing himself that hovered between painting and sculpture and found the artist, Red Grooms and his “Stickouts” very inspirational.