Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael O’Keefe.
Michael, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I came to Dallas in 2004 after having lived in the northeast my whole life; I grew up in NH, went to college in PA and MD, and then I lived in New York City for many years. I came to Dallas to attain a master’s degree from SMU. I thought I would stay only long enough to secure my degree and then head back to NYC, but I found Dallas to be a great city for an emerging artist. I have been here ever since, working as an artist and teaching art. Having lived in both NYC and Dallas, the benefits of Dallas for an artist are very clear to me; the cost of living in Texas is so much more favorable than NYC, the arts community is less saturated with artists but still very vibrant and with many opportunities, there is a healthy economy that supports the arts, and there is a youthful enthusiasm in Dallas that continues to build the arts community into a more diverse, rich and formidable art city.
As an artist I work in the fields of drawing and sculpture, occasionally stretching into the world of painting. My work is figurative in the largest sense of the word. I grew up in a world of New York figurative abstraction, informed by abstract expressionism, but also informed by my personal sweeping interest in art history (from an artist’s point of view!). For 10 years I have been represented locally by Valley House Gallery and Sculpture Garden, a fabulous gallery located in a unique location in North Dallas for more than 60 years now.
As an arts educator, I spent 7 years teaching in academia before pulling out to start my own independent teaching studio. The O’Keefe Studio Center, founded in 2013, is an independent teaching studio dedicated to arts education opportunities for adults and young adults of all artistic backgrounds. We offer classes, workshops, lectures and professional development opportunities, focused on design, drawing, painting and sculpture. More recently, we have added “art tours” to the offerings at the Studio Center: This past summer I took a group of artists and art lovers to London to visit museums and galleries; in the spring I will take a group to NYC to visit museums, galleries and studios; next summer I will take a group of artists to Italy to draw and paint in the Apuan Alps and to visit the museums in Florence.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
One of the specific courses I offer at The Studio Center is the Advanced Studio Seminar. I am very fond of this 7 month intensive seminar because it gives me an opportunity to help others navigate the challenges and obstacles of establishing or sustaining a life as an artist. Working as an artist has its challenges; one has to spend countless hours working independently developing ones craft, one has to navigate the obstacles of influence so that one’s own voice can rise up effectively out of a sea of influence, and one has to navigate the sharper obstacles of procuring career opportunities. Working as an artist is hard work, like working seriously at anything, but it is a great privilege to live in a time and place that supports such a pursuit. Ultimately, for me, the rewards of experiencing the full range of my creative self far outweigh the day-to-day struggles of being an artist. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to dedicate my life to making drawings and sculptures. I am also very fortunate to, as a teacher, have the opportunity to help others develop themselves as artists.
Please tell us about Michael O’Keefe (Artist) / The O’Keefe Studio Center (Teaching Studio).
The most distinct aspect of my art work is that it is, almost 100% of the time, born from playful processes that establish a chaotic visual situation that I then extract both imagery and visual dynamics from. In other words, I adopt strange behaviors and tools and materials so as to keep the process of making art fresh and fertile. For instance, I have been known to draw with pencils stuck cockeyed in a drill so that the pencil strikes the page with each rotation, making a unique vocabulary. Or I will dip a string in paint or ink and whip it around on a canvas set or paper, set flat on the floor, to make a network of lively lines and shapes and marks that I then edit carefully over time to make a dynamic image that was found within the initial “mess”. Plaster is my favorite sculptural material because it has so many different stages of existence (liquid, semi-solid, and solid) that I can make behave in various ways to keep me on the edge of my seat, so to speak. In my work I strive to find images that have never been seen before but that also provide fertile ground for profound projection, images in which we can recognize some part of our selves in.
I think my most distinct characteristic as a teacher is that I am truly invested in each individual developing their own sensibility and pursuing their own creative desires, as opposed to teaching a “correct” way to draw or paint or sculpt, or any single aesthetic. I work hard to balance a sense of better and worse, a sense of historical context, a sense of contemporary trends, with a sense of each individual’s voice, interests and creative desires.
Contact Info:
- Address: The O’Keefe Studio Center
580 W. Arapaho
Suite 290 Richardson, TX 75080 - Website: theokeefestudio.com (teaching) / michaelokeefestudio.com (personal artwork)
- Phone: 718 541 4164
- Email: mokeefesculpture@mac.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/michaelokeefeartist
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-OKeefe-Studio-Center-176701882484368/
- Other: facebook.com/mokeefesculpture
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