Teri Galleries Fine Art - Michael Blaser Collection

Michael Blaser...
After the Marines, I got serious (about art) and went to Chicago where I apprenticed as an artist at a large art studio. I learned illustration and graphic design; I crewed on big racing boats up and down Lake Michigan. After three or so years, I found a great job as an art director for John Deere back in my home town. When I came back home, the themes of my childhood came back to me and after work, I began painting with an eye for making my own living as a marine painter. I quit John Deere after three years. I was young, single, living along the river and I finally knew how to paint.

I painted whaling ships, frigates, down easters and clippers. But this was Iowa and a clipper ship is something pictured on a whiskey bottle. After the Gas & Electric Company shut off the power, I figured I'd be better off changing my marketing. This may seem hard to believe, but I put together a great set of samples, headed for the coast and started illustrating for every decent sailing magazine on the east coast. I learned things as an illustrator: (1) know your subject - I did, (2) do the job on time and (3) don't bill too high. Within a year, my client list included Sail, Cruising World, Boating and Lakeland Boating magazines. I did cutaways for Hood Sails, Blackfin Yachts, Palmer Johnson, Southern Cross and more. It can be done - I did it and never have they shut off my lights and gas again.

In the early 1980s, I emerged into what I am today: a fine artist painting historic and contemporary scenes of the Western Rivers (Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri Rivers) and the Great Lakes. My work is in oil and the canvases are from twenty inches to sixteen feet across. The theme usually is the historic cities and shipping familiar to the city at a given time. I have painted St. Paul, Davenport, St. Louis, Memphis, Natchez, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Charleston and Louisville on the rivers. On the lakes, I've painted Chicago, Milwaukee, Mackinac, Cleveland and Harbor Springs.

I've found through trial and error, that although people love the connection to boats and ships, they truly get excited when there is an interrelationship between that particular vessel and their home town. I love the twilight era of steam, the Roosevelt to Roosevelt period of 1900 to 1945, any midwestern river or lake community that still has buildings standing today that were new in this time period. You can see this theme first hand as you browse my images. I enjoy the classic image of a common scene that might be taken for granted in 1931. You know - the smell of fuel oil or burning coal. The musky smell of the river or the fresh cold waves off the lake.

When I decide to paint or when I am commissioned to create a scene, I go to the community. I photograph the community that exists today for reference. Then I go to the museums and research the photo archives and talk to historians and the people who work the waterfronts. Every river or lake community had its favorite boat. Cleveland had the Goodtime, Cincinnati the Island Queen, St. Paul the Capitol and St. Louis the North and South American. Today, all river towns claim the Delta Queen as their own.