| About Jon |
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| Jon Bray has been a wildlife artist for about 25 years. He wasn’t formally trained through an art school but living in Southern Illinois alone gave him all the subject matter he could want for training. He started carving when he was 15 years old out of necessity rather than want when he needed a gift for his mother. She had seen a small carving of a loon in a store and he didn’t have the money to buy it. With no other ideas for a gift, Jon decided that if he didn’t have the money, he would carve the loon himself. From that determination as a young teenager spurred a love that eventually turned into an obsession for carving and sculpturing wildlife art. With 3 counties full of subject matter around him, Jon started observing as much as he could of the fish and waterfowl in the surrounding area. He had always had an appreciation of wildlife through conservation, hunting and fishing, but learned to look at it in a different way through art. At first he tried carving decoys much like the first attempt of the loon he carved for his mother. As he got older and more experienced, he tried to introduce movement into his pieces as much as possible and capture the reality of a bird in flight or a fish trying to escape a predator. He was always trying to look for a unique way to make the observer look not only at the piece but beyond it too. Jon says that his at style is still “a work in progress.” He likes mixing mediums to produce just the right background and atmosphere that stresses movement. Apoxie Sculpt, metal and wood integrated together are the main materials he uses to produce the end result of his style of wildlife art. He has learned a lot through trial and error and he always tries to find new ways to capture the observer’s attention through unconventional methods while still retaining the basics of traditional carving and sculpturing techniques as the foundation of each piece. Each piece that he sculpts or carves is an original. Jon says he’s not one to duplicate the last piece he finished but he does get ideas from previous pieces to set up for the next one. He has studied other wildlife artists and their styles from art publications and writings and he appreciates both local and national artists. Jon believes that every artist has something to give whether they do it for a living or not and that everyone can learn from someone else no matter what their level of talent is. Being a self-taught artist has granted him the freedom to take his art to his limitations and no one else’s. Jon hopes to have many years to come to explore nature and wildlife around him and then opportunity to capture it in his art. After 25 plus years of being an artist, he says that he has “just begun to scratch the surface” of ideas for his projects. Whether it’s to de-stress after his day job or pass on the tradition to his two daughters that hang around with him in his shop, besides his family, being a wildlife artist is the best thing he’s found for the mind, heart and soul. CONTACT: Jon Bray RR 1 Box 98 Grantsburg, IL 62943 Jon@brayart.net Telephone: 618-949-3887 |
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