D A V I D   G R A E M E   B A K E R

David Graeme Baker was born in South Africa in 1968, the son of a surgeon and a very creative mother. Her talents as a crafter inspired in David the attitude that if one wants something, one can easily make it oneself. In other words, he was raised in a house that valued attention to small details and excellent work. While it’s now easy to see this in his paintings, there were no distinct signs when David was young that he would grow up and be an artist.  As a child  he doodled a lot, borrowed figure drawing books from the library, and loved his grade school art class. However, his high school had no art program, so it took a while at university to come back around to making art. 
 
He graduated from Wesleyan University as an art major, having focused on sculpture; for his senior exhibition he made several large scale pieces that made his parents proud – and eventually took up an entire bay in their garage back in Erie, Pennsylvania.
In an effort to steep himself in traditional studio art, David attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.   He signed onto the four year Certificate program.  In this age when one can get certificates for nearly anything from flossing every day for a week to attending a two hour seminar on napkin folding, it’s important to stress that THIS certificate is a big deal: four years of long days of life drawing, painting, and sculpture, lots of anatomy and a smattering of art history.  It’s a classical approach to becoming an artist and David took to it like a duck to biscotti. Within his first year he’d shifted his focus from sculpture to painting due in part to helpful nudges from members of the faculty (thank you Glenn Rudderow!).  When he wasn’t painting he was playing ultimate Frisbee, listening to and playing music and reveling in the offerings of the Italian and Asian food markets that fill South Philadelphia. 
After graduating from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he remained in Philadelphia for two years before moving to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, making a living as an artist and teacher.  He met the woman he’d one day marry; she agreed to go on a date with him even though he made fun of her knit hat in their very first conversation.  In 2000 David and this funny-hatted girlfriend (okay, she was no longer wearing the hat) moved to Mount Desert Island, Maine.  While most artists move to Maine to focus on their landscape painting, David moved indoors (a result of the cold winters, perhaps) to focus on figures and interiors.
He lives in Hancock, Maine in a big old farmhouse that always needs painting (ironic, isn’t it?) with his wife Sarah, two teens named Morgan and Corin, and a black lab who’d do anything for a tummy rub.  He’s found that the most effective ways to procrastinate are making espressos, studying italian, and following European football.
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