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November Club Meeting - Doug Dale, A Bike Racer & His Bike Art

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  • November Club Meeting - Doug Dale, A Bike Racer & His Bike Art
Date: 
Tuesday, November 8, 2016 - 6:00pm
Spots: 
200

A presentation and exhibit/sale of bike art by Doug Dale, sponsored by DUGart

Event: November Club Meeting
Topic: “A Bike Racer & His Bike Art”, a presentation and exhibit/sale of bike art by Doug Dale, sponsored by DUGart.
Date: November 8, 2016
Location: Connolly’s Bar & Restaurant, 121 w. 45th St. (3rd fl.) (bet. 6th Ave. & B’way)

Doug Dale has been a bicycle racer for over 50 years.  In April 2011, he crashed badly at the Tour of the Battenkill, Cambridge, NY, and nearly lost his life due to extensive internal injuries and 21 bone fractures.  During his recovery, he turned to a latent, but life-long interest in creating art. 

Please join us at our NYCC meeting on November 8th to hear Doug’s story detailing his incredible transformation from champion bike racer to accomplished bike artist. Doug will be exhibiting his unique bike-centric artwork, which will also be available for purchase. DUGart, his company, has generously agreed to sponsor our meeting by donating selected items from his collection and bike-art personal note cards for our FREE raffle.

Schedule:
6:00PM - dine, drink and schmooze
7:00PM – program
8:15PM - raffle

Note: For a detailed personal statement from Doug and a list of his extensive bike racing accomplishments, please read our meeting’s event page and for a sample of Doug’s unique bike-centric artwork, please check out his website: http://www.dugartwork.com

Doug Dale  - Personal Statement – Life Fabric - Art and Sport

Doug Dale has been a bicycle racer for over 50 years.  In April 2011, he crashed badly at the Tour of the Battenkill, Cambridge, NY, and nearly lost his life due to extensive internal injuries and 21 bone fractures.  During his recovery, he turned to a latent but life long interest in creating art. 

After his father’s discharge from the submarine service following WWII, the family struggled to make ends meet first in Bridgeport, CT and later in southeastern Connecticut in the New London area. Despite a scarcity of extra income there always seemed time for special museum trips to places throughout New England with special visits to New York City.  The treasured trips deeply ingrained an appreciation for the visual arts in all of the Dale children throughout their childhood.  These visits piqued Doug’s imagination and his desire to create using virtually any art medium available. Later, in both high school in Westport, Connecticut and college at Temple University; he took took art courses when he could fit them in.  As the years went by he would periodically be inspired to create work but only for personal pleasure.

Dale’s career has included two separate tenures of teaching middle school social studies both in Connecticut and in Massachusetts.  But the bulk of his working life was devoted to the business world and a 25+ year venture building a retail business that included four full line bicycle stores with fitness, swim and racket sport departments and outlets in two cross-country ski centers.  Along with these intense professional and educational commitments he continued to compete at the highest levels of amateur bicycle racing.  Even today in semi “retirement” Doug continues to focus on maintaining his hand in the sport through daily training.

After the near fatal accident in 2011 and finding himself with “free” time for the first time in his life he returned to the childhood love of creating art.  It has grown into a passion that he pursues with the same enthusiasm he devoted to a lifetime of competitive cycling.

 Most of his pieces consist of mixed media collage, with paper being the predominant material.  Many years ago, as a counselor in a federally funded urban arts program, Doug was expected to create art along side his young charges. It was there that he was first exposed to collage using multi colored tissue and a urethane binder.  He began working in this difficult media mixing found paper such as giftwrap and colored tissue plus custom fabricated and custom painted paper to construct his collages. Many compositions are layered with as many as a dozen layers of paper in creating the desired colors and images.

Not surprisingly, Doug’s artwork has cycling as a central theme with the genesis for most of his collection coming from his personally experiencing the “brutal beauty” of the sport. The highly stylized images represented in his pieces provide a unique perspective of the experience of speed, suffering, and pain contrasting with the kaleidoscopic rhythms, patterns and synchronicity that are also part of the fabric of the sport. Cycling is a sport where it is strategically critical for competitors to ride in close physical proximity to each other. Though, teamwork is essential, only one member of the team can win. Each rider has to be viciously individualistic to win a race but must also work in close concert with teammates and fellow competitors. There are constantly changing high speed games of oxygen deficient chess as riders play out the drama of each race. The environment in which each race takes place has its own completely unique set of visual qualities that Doug attempts to explore in his current work.

 In many of the pieces, viewers can experience the cacophony of vivid colored jerseys, gloves and socks that are endemic to the styles worn by the lycra clad riders. Yet, the riders themselves look virtually identical right down to their sunglasses and helmets.  The jerseys represent the chaos of color on the back of each competitor. The physical uniformity of the riders add to the sense conformity needed to ride together. The result is an amorphous mass of athletes moving in unity and rhythm. Though each rider is an individual, the groups of riders together form patterns and shapes that create a kind of a giant cohesive organism as it moves down the road – or across the canvas.

Two of the most common observations made about Doug’s work are: first, how it invites actually touching the surfaces since the surfaces provide unusual tactile sensations that also add visual interest. Second, it is evident how much in the way of time investment and patience needed to work in the medium to create such a unique product.

Though Dale primarily centralizes his themes around the sport of bicycle racing, every possible facet of this highly diverse sport seems to contribute to his work. Whether it is Tour de France riders pouring through a Cezanne inspired landscape, distorted images of racers passing behind wine bottles (presumably in Euro vineyards), riders bumping through a Diego Rivera self portrait on a city street or a peloton of “fast women” scorching across a canvas, all are incredibly unique visions of the sport and those who are part of it.     

Dale’s Sporting Career Summary

  • Total of 50 years of involvement in bicycle racing.

  • ’64 Olympic trials at age17. Missed making the team in the last four miles.

  • Winner of over 100 races in his active years in the sport, in road, track, and cyclo-cross events

  • Member of the fabled Century/Raleigh team

  • Competed throughout North America, Europe, in Union of South Africa, and Ireland

  • Director of Austro-Daimler junior cycling team, the most successful junior cycling team in U.S. history

  • 13 time Connecticut State champion.

  • National Intercollegiate Road champion

  • Eastern Cycling Federation track champion

  • Multiple New England road race champion

  • Coach, Peloton Sports women’s cycling team
 

Connolly’s/NYCC Beer Happy Hour

We are thrilled to announce a new Connolly’s/NYCC Beer Happy Hour (which will continue through the entire length of our meetings), from 6:00 - 9:00 PM. The following beers will be available for purchase during the Beer Happy Hour at the discounted price of $6.00 :

Bass Ale  ·  Sam Adams  ·  Connolly’s Red or Wheat  ·  Yuengling

 

 

Raffle Prizes

  • Sets of 10 personal note cards (there are two different assortments)
  • Sets of 5 years of “Tour of the Battenkill” posters
  • “Headwind” posters, with the names of the 5 boroughs tattooed on the rider
  • Featured prize: a “Rush Hour” Giclee.  

(Please check out Doug Dale’s web site: dugartwork.com for images of the above items and more of his unique bike-centric art work)

 

 

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November Club Meeting - Doug Dale, A Bike Racer & His Bike Art
11.08.2016
6:00pm
cycling trips