August Featured Artist – Fred Sprock

OPENING RECEPTION:
First Friday, August 7 from 5 to 8 p.m

A native of North Carolina, Fred retired from a career in advertising and began painting in earnest, enrolling at Braitman Studio in Charolotte. Over the years he has studied under Dee Beard Dean, Morgan Samuel Price, Richard Fennell, Roger Dale Brown, Wayne McDowell and Stuart Shils. Fred has taught at The Upstairs Gallery in North Carolina as well as Braitman Studio and also facilitated a trip to Tuscany. He has participated in several shows, most recently a one-man show at Bishop’s Stock in Snow Hill where he has lived since 2012.

While teaching beginning classes, Fred would instruct, “If you do this, that will happen.” It was then that he began to define for himself the difference between a “painter” and an “artist.”

“Over time, a painter acquires the technical skills necessary to render a strong likeness of the subject, knowing that if ‘I do this, that will happen.’ To become an artist,” he says, “at some level you must, to the extent possible, abandon that knowledge and ask yourself, ‘If I do this, what will happen?’ ” That is his challenge.