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Dave Martsolf Biography - The Artwork Speaks for Itself - Here is How I Got Where I Am
I was born in 1949 in Manhattan, Kansas. My dad, Louis, was teaching Art and Indian Lore at Kansas State University at the time. My mom, Ruth, was with him, working as a professional photographer. My dad left Kansas because his father, Arthur, called him, to help in the family architectural firm started by his uncle in western Pennsylvania. The firm's work encompassed private houses, churches, civic and business building projects throughout the four-state area. I remember the pastel and watercolor sets used in Dad's office to render designs for presentation to customers. I remember watching the draftsmen detailing the elevations, floor plans, and electrical and plumbing plans; the awful smell of ammonia used to make the magic blueprints in the damp basement of the old two-story office wedged in-between other small businesses in New Brighton.
Yet, despite the closeness of one of the few businesses in the world that requires a melding of arts and science, my parents never made a big deal about it or pushed me toward that life. Mom had given up her professional career to raise me and my soon to come two younger brothers. Dad had a small corner in the basement of our small New Brighton house where he stored his own paintings from his college days.
Dad is dead now. Mom is still alive. My parents were divorced when I was 12, and Mom and the three kids moved to New Hampshire. Dad never did return to art as a way to put food on the table. And Mom never went back to professional photography. Looking back, I can see all this now and for myself hope to finally bring untold generations of talented ancestral ability from both sides of the aisle to the wider culture of man.
