Featured Artist: Michael Osadciw
I never thought I’d have a booth at an art show. I never really considered myself an artist. I never went to school for it, and never really made a living at it either. Sure, I’m always making things and being creative all the time, at work and at home, but to me what I did didn’t fit into the modern idea of an “artist.” No artist statements here. However being around more artists the past few years, including working with Artist Row’s very own Sarah Kirchoff, helped me realize I was an artist and encouraged me to get my work out in front of people.
Up until recently I rarely ever created anything just for fun. It always had to have a purpose: someone was paying me to draw, or I wanted an Adirondack Chair but was too cheap to buy a good one so I guess I better learn to build one. The creative process has always been enjoyable, and allowed me to exercise the creative bug that’s been itching inside me since I was little. I’ve always had time to scratch that itch until becoming a dad a few years ago. So exhibiting at Artist Row helps me get connected to that creative feeling again by forcing me to try some things out with a deadline.
My day job is as a graphic designer at the University of Rochester, but my illustration work tends to be for science-fiction: currently for a sci-fi roleplaying game that I own and try to make new stuff for, and previously lots of freelance work for other game companies. Due to the fact that most of my work for these games needed to be printed in black and white I’ve become most experienced in pen and ink, ink wash, and pencil. Only now am I getting more into color and also moving to a lot of digital tools to get things accomplished. I’ve also been learning to build furniture as well; mostly outdoors stuff so my fit and finish can still be a bit rough while I gain experience. And also drawing obscure Star Wars characters on my son’s lunch bags.
So you’ll see the breadth of my interests represented at my booth. I’ll have some illustration prints, a wood craft, and some books I’ve published. Plus I’ll be bringing a book with a sampling of a lot of my work from over the years. I’ve never put anything together like that before so I’d love it if you’d stop by and take a look (A67). You can be honest; I think I can take it by now.