Stu Eichel, Art in Public Places

Saratoga Springs Public Library

49 Henry St, Saratoga Springs, NY

October 2nd-30th, 2025

Artist Statement 

I've always thought that artists are the luckiest people. A talent picks you, instead of you picking it, so I never spent a day of my life trying to decide if I wanted to be a cowboy or a fireman. When my kindergarten teacher chose my work to go up on the wall, that was it. Even back then I had a vague notion that I was special because I had artistic talent. This carried me right through high school where I never felt inferior in spite of being a ninety-nine pound non-athletic wimp.

I read a lot so I knew that painters starve and cut their ears off. This wouldn't do for me because I get queasy from pin pricks during check-ups. I graduated from Pratt Institute with a graphic arts degree. This made me a Madison Avenue art director for ten years. You can't believe how much I hated big cities. I answered an ad to be a creative director "in the shadow of the Smokies." That made me happy for seventeen years. There was a five-year interruption when I dropped out of advertising to do pencil drawings of local scenes. They ended up as prints in more than 350 galleries and frame shops that spanned the whole country. This made me determined to return to fine art; a second career that I would love even more than advertising. I quit the ad game and entered the University of Tennessee and went through the fine arts program, painting all the way. 

I now live in Saratoga Springs and paint all over upstate New York. If you think you saw me on a street comer painting a local scene, you did. When it's over 50 degrees I'm outside painting what you'd like to paint if you were me. Beep your horn or stop by and say hello.