About Michael Speaker
Michael Speaker grew up in Portland Oregon in a musical family. He recieved his undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon and an MFA in painting from the University of Colorado in Boulder Colorado. He moved to Los Angeles working in the movie business as a IATSE local 816, scenic artist and as a special effects sculptor and modelmaker. Since the middle eighties he has been doing his own work as well as commissioned work too. His work is mostly in private collections.
He lives with his wife Flavia, and maintains a sculpture studio in the lower Hudson River Valley of New York.
About Michael Speaker's artwork
Michael Speaker's signature sculpture style are animals or figures covered wooden tiles that often open into a fall leaf desk or bureaucrat with drawers in them. He also makes wooden sculpture covered in tiles as well as carved wood.
He also has his work cast in bronze. The bronze rhino, inspired by Durer, is a maquette for a full-size desk, similar in craftsmanship to the other animal desks. His work has been shown in museums and galleries in the US and more recently completed several commissions for private collectors.
Some of his work satirizes the business world which is so desparately needed these days. Most of these pieces are in private collections …of businessmen.
In the "Writing" section several of the short blurbs are substitutes for what normally passes as an artist's statement.
About This Site
Caution: Eye glazing paragraph using computery words.
This is my third interation of my site. The first was by a "webmaster" - I would never use that term. The second was my first attempt early in the Bush The Younger's administration. I used (now hopelessly outdated) tables based code, a dial up connection, and actually cared if a page would properly load on Internet Explorer .
Now in early 2011 I assume everyone has a fast connection, are running browsers other than Explorer, or …if Explorer, the latest version that finally sees the CSS box model like the rest of the browser world. I also used scripting languag, including; jquery, spry elements, plus two different gallery slideshow aplications and cascading style sheets, (css-2 and css-3) the latter is making it possible to do things that before, you had to make with your teeth or other handy anatomical parts.
It was a challenge just getting it all to work (read learning this new, to me, language ) so I have not paid as much attention to the visuals as I usually do. That will change soon. More content will be added on a regular basis and I will be adding a "Headway" themed Wordpress blog section to the site in the near future.
- ms