Artist of the day: Artist of the day, September 2, 2021: Justin Alsedek, an American Painter, muralist (#1354)

Thursday, September 2, 2021

Artist of the day, September 2, 2021: Justin Alsedek, an American Painter, muralist (#1354)

Justin Alsedek
My journey began in Harrisburg Pennsylvania in a home which creativity and music was encouraged. I have had an eye for capturing scenes and personality in my work since before I can remember. My parents set me free with a camera and the world never looked the same again. This desire to create lead me on a path towards art school to fine tune my abilities, hone in on my talents and broaden my horizons. During my time as an art student I got a summer position drawing portraits for Kamans Art Shoppes in Hershey Park. There they trained me to use chalk pastels to draw quick lifelike portraits of park goers. I fell in love with the art of live portraiture, and continued to work for them for five years.

I graduated from Pennsylvania College of Art and Design in 2007 with a bachelors degree in fine art photography. It was during my fifth year with Kamans that I decided to take an adventurous chance. In 2008 I decided to quit my job, I told my boss that I needed to go on a spiritual journey to find myself. I had made a plan to tent camp thirty minutes from the Ocean City MD boardwalk, drive into town every evening to set up and draw live portraits for “generous donations” (at this point you were not allowed to set a price as a street artist.) Met with open arms and open wallets I soon was making enough money that I was able to rent a cabin not far from work. After two summers of this I decided to take another risky leap of faith.

I packed my car up for Key West to go draw portraits at Mallory Square’s sunset celebration. In key West I met many traveling artists, musicians and found another place to call home. It’s become a life practice for me to take off to new places spreading my art along the way. I have had the fortune of seeing many beautiful places in and out of our country. The exotic and the geologically astounding sites have inspired many pictures and paintings for me. It’s been my preference and pleasure to meet new people and places as the Gypsea Artist I am, doing business the old fashion way.

After 8 years of pretty steady travel I have landed now in Ocala Florida with my wife and son, where my art career has unexpectedly blossomed. I have been taking on a variety of art commissions, working on personal art projects, traveling to juried art festivals to sell my works and recently have been creating Murals.

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