Bill DeWitt America, b. 1968

 For my day job I am president of the St. Louis Cardinals. Baseball and the business of baseball are my career priority, but I am passionate about creating art in my free time.

I took a lot of art classes in school, and majored in Art History at Yale, but with work and family obligations in my early adult years, my art simmered on the back burner for a while. Recently I’ve jumped back in with gusto and am excited to keep the momentum going on my artistic journey.

From a process standpoint, I often start with a traditional blank canvas and paint an image using acrylics. Other times I start a project on my iPad using Procreate. Procreate is a graphics program that allows me to manipulate photos or other imported images as well as create layers of color and other compositional elements that can be quickly changed or modified as needed. If I like it enough to create a physical version, I will print it onto a canvas and layer acrylics and other mixed media onto it in my studio. It may end up looking like the original image - or completely different - depending on how it evolves on the canvas. I like to choose the frame for my canvases, which can range from a simple floating modern style to an ornate gold-leaf antique, depending on the image and where I envision it hanging.

I am inspired by a wide range of artists in the western cannon such as Picasso, Avery, Van Gogh and the Impressionists; the Taos Society members such as Sharp, Couse, and Hennings; and late 20th century masters such as Rothko, Warhol, Kandinsky, and Hopper. And I enjoy following hundreds of current artists like Retna, Mr. Brainwash, Banksy, and others who use social media to reach global audiences.