Don Finkeldei

 I grew up in a small farming community in Kansas.  As far back as I can remember I was interested in art and the process of capturing the mood and atmosphere of a landscape.  As a child, I checked a book out of the Library about J. M. W. Turner and was fascinated by his unique ability to capture the ambient mood of the scene in addition to the visual aspects.  I like paintings that invoke emotion and draw out the other senses, the cold crispness of a winter’s morning, the smell of rain, the tranquility of an early morning just after dawn, or the mystery of a foggy rainy day.  I don’t intend to reproduce images.  Cameras and copy machines do that.  I try to express the emotions and senses I feel at the time I paint it.

I strive to continuously learn, experiment, and evolve.  For me, the learning process is just as satisfying as the painting process.  In the past I used a very large array of colors on my palette.  Now I use a very limited palette confined to the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow with premixed warm and cool grays of various value.  I’ve also learned to think in terms of the attributes of color rather than just “color”.  When I mix paint I’m thinking of value, relative color temperature, color saturation and hue.  I use warm and cool grays to modify the attributes of the primary colors.   My best work is when I do my thinking on the palette, mixing, fitting in pools of paint with the rest of the pools of paint I’ve mixed for various objects, planes, shadows, recession, light and sky.  Once all is worked out on the palette (a large palette) I’m free to put the knowledge in my subconscious background and create the painting without much pause for thought allowing my creative and impulsive side to take control.

I graduated college with a major in Physics and a minor in Art.  I had intended to work the first half of my life as a physicist and then devote the second phase of my life as an artist.  I did exactly that.  I worked for several large corporations.  I continued painting and sculpting in my free time.  In the Early 1980’s I bowed out of the  first phase, moved to Santa Fe and began painting and sculpting full time.  Leaving a secure career for the unknown is a scary thing to do but I never once regretted it

SHOWS:
Santa Fe Fine Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico (1each year)
Pellam Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Linda McAdoo Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Linda McAdoo Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Linda McAcoo Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Missouri Athletic Club, St. Louis, Missouri
Linda McAdoo, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Missouri Athletic Club, St. Louis, Missouri
Jan Ballew Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Taos Art Gallery, Taos, New Mexico
Jan Ballew Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Wings Gallery, Thousand Oaks, California
Jan Ballew Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Carnahan Fine Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico

PUBLICATIONS:
Southwest Art, 2004
Pasa Tiempo, Santa Fe New Mexican, 1995
The Santa Fean Magazine, 1995
Focus Santa Fe Magazine, 1994
Art and Aniques Magazine, 1993
The Santa Fean Magazine, 1990
The Santa Fean Magazine, 1993, 1992
Focus Santa Fe Magazine, 1991
Front Page Article, The New Mexican, 1991
The Arizona Magazine, 1992