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About Tom Davies



seascapes landscapes

About Tom Davies and merry holiday season




I was born in 1949, in Shropshire, England, on the Welsh border. My family were sheep farmers, and I was raised in an isolated rural setting, where my love of nature and appreciation of landscape were fostered. But the post-war farming community was harsh in its social judgments, and "Art" was considered a luxury concept for the upper classes, not an acceptable occupation for a local farmer's son. What's more, while I enjoyed the art classes at school, the teacher discouragingly told me I had no talent, and advised me to pursue the sciences instead.

At eighteen I left Shropshire to attend university in Birmingham, and got a degree in engineering, but didn't enjoy it and never used the degree. I chose to teach in an elementary school for a few years, and then returned to Shropshire where I worked the family's sheep farm. I married and had a daughter, Jessica (now married, with children of her own!) but the marriage only lasted briefly.

Eventually I left farming, and worked for a while for a nature conservation group; then, having saved up enough, I began to travel. I went to India in 1984, and then came to California in 1988.

It was on this California trip, when I was 40, that I met some artists who encouraged me to try my hand at oil painting. As I had fallen in love with the California landscape (and with a Californian woman, who has since become my wife) it all seemed to come together for me.

I have been happily painting ever since.

Initially my wife Molly and I lived in the Carmel area, where she was raised. Her late grandfather, Theodore Criley, had been one of the early California painters who settled in Carmel's art colony, around 1915. Criley's work particularly inspired me, and I sought out several of the specific vantage points from which he had painted, painting the same scenes and feeling somehow connected to him, even "channelling" his inspiration.

We then moved to Davis for four years, while Molly attended the university, and I painted the flat prairie landscapes with the distant hills, the fields of row crops, and the beautiful old barns.

In 1997 we returned, living first in the city of Monterey and then moving in 2000 to the old Garrapata Trout Farm (no longer functioning as such) where I've established a studio. Visitors are welcome!

My autobiography would be incomplete without mention of the true love of my life: the game of cricket. As anyone who knows me is well aware, I am passionate about this game (I put the "fan" back in "fanatic") and my very favorite way to spend time is to be painting landscapes while listening to cricket broadcasts on the radio.Internet LW radio 4 Test Match Special or Radio 5 Live--

As a self-taught oil painter, I feel very fortunate that my work has met the approval of a wonderful collection of people, who have supported my efforts and purchased my paintings. I've had my work accepted in galleries in San Francisco, Sacramento, Davis, Los Angeles, Fresno, Salinas, the Monterey Peninsula cities; and abroad, in Manchester, England, and in Mezin, France.