May’s outstanding member award goes to…

www.tailcast.com is pleased to announce that Benjamin Spees is our member of the month.

His mastery of realist painting and ‘award winning’ spoof feature films have been a delight to the Cast and our members.

Follow these links to his videos for a smile…

TailcastHeart

Scarlett Johannsson stole my luggage!

Electric Tailcastland

In his own words…

Location (e.g. Town, Area or City & Country)

Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

About Me:

(My Youtube Channel is goldfishparakeet45)

I am a self-taught realist painter, working in acrylics on canvas. I focus mainly on portrait and figure painting. In 1995, I began teaching myself to draw in graphite on paper. After two years, I felt I had learned enough to start trying to paint. It was initially frustrating, because in many ways I had to start all over. My early paintings were terrible, not anywhere near as good as my drawings. Handling a liquid medium, learning color mixing, and figuring out what order in which to do things took another two years. Instead of taking classes, which I could not afford, I went to Seattle’s Frye Art Museum nearly every day, to study their permanent collection and see exhibitions by artists like Steven Assael. Back then, in the late 90s, Richard West was still director, so the museum was adhering to its stated commitment to representational art. They have since broadened their definition of representational art into meaninglessness.

In 2003, someone told me about a call for artists for a show at the Bemis Building, an artists’ cooperative, which was sponsoring a juried exhibition. I had never shown work anywhere, and had no educational credentials, but I submitted some slides of my work. They accepted three canvases for their 2003 Fall Art Show. I was one of two realist painters in a show of post-modern painting, installation, and sculpture. I was nervous, but I really enjoyed meeting other artists and knowing that I was good enough to get into an actual art exhibition.

Since then, I have done a few portrait commissions, and sold some paintings in small venues like salons, and on Ebay, but have had no contact with other artists, except my mother, who is an expressionist painter, and my brother who is a published poet with one book credit so far. I just found out about tailcast yesterday (May 3, 2008) and am enjoying the contact with other artists already!

favourite artist

Steven Assael

favourite film or director

Ridley Scott

favourite band, singer or musician

Sting, The Rolling Stones, Enya, Aerosmith, Suzanne Vega, AC/DC, R.E.M., The Police, Bob Seger, 10,000 Maniacs, The Doors, Bruce Hornsby, Guns n Roses, Handel

favourite writers or books

John Fowles, James Lee Burke, Richard Dawkins, Ben Bova, John Steinbeck