Bruce Thacker

I bought my first camera in 1964 while in the military in Japan. In the following 40 years I was, in chronological order, an ardent armature photographer, a professional studio photographer, owner / operator of a custom photo lab, and owner / operator of a contemporary art gallery.

When all that was behind me, I spent my time learning how to use the computer in order to handle investments in the stock market; though photography still was of great interest to me.

Many of my images span the above mentioned 40 years, some were digitized from film [magnolia] and some were more recently taken with a digital camera.

Most of my recent artworks, however, were created without the help of a camera, produced totally in the computer. I am not a computer expert. What I know I taught myself by continual experimentation; many accidents but no mistakes. I always say I am an expert at nothing but a student of everything and learning is its own reward. In creating abstractions, I generally start with a group or pattern (palette) of colors, either found on the internet or brought together by me on a blank page in Photoshop.

They are then formed and manipulated on Photoshop, Gimp, Paint.net and/or Picasa.

As with many artists I highly value the accidental or serendipitous event; that instant when a fluttering red leaf becomes a red bird; that moment when a line of poetry creates a tingling sensation like champagne bubbles in the brain. And so it is with my abstractions.

I have recently enjoyed working in the abstract most of all. All the clutter of content is removed and I am delighted by working with line, color and form; moving them about until an association occurs that I cannot ignore, then I have found that moment of poetry.

Recently I self-published a collection of my art which can be found on Blurb.com.

Bruce Thacker's art on the Web

Bruce Thacker's AutoGallery exhibit