While at Shipley, Mr. Van Dyck was an enthusiastic student in the School’s art program. His considerable natural talent and his powerful drive to excel helped to propel his growth as both a painter and drawer. Even today, faculty members Mr. Baris and Ms. Wagner remember the remarkable portraits Mr. Van Dyck produced for his Senior Independent Study. After graduation, Mr. Van Dyck attended Wesleyan University until his passion for painting led him to Florence, Italy. There, his innovation, curiosity, and creativity quickly marked him as a standout student, and he later became an instructor at the renowned Florence Academy of Art.

Mr. Van Dyck’s work has shown in 50 exhibits in various galleries from 2001 to the present. In 2004, Shipley had the pleasure of hosting an alumni reception at the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco, where several of Mr. Van Dyck’s paintings were exhibited. In 2009 his oil on linen piece titled “Apartment Story” received third place honors at the prestigious Art of the State exhibition in Harrisburg, which recognized Mr. Van Dyck’s talent and creativity among a diverse field of both established and emerging artists. His most recent exhibition took place in April right here in Philadelphia, at Artists’ House Gallery in Old City.

Since 2003, Mr. Van Dyck has served as Assistant Professor at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and he has also been a Guest Instructor at the Wayne Art Center and at Gage Academy in Seattle, Washington. While sharing his gift with others, Mr. Van Dyck remains committed to his own craft. He recently discovered canine remains in the woods, brought the bones home, cleaned them, reassembled them, and then used them as the subject of a painting aptly titled “Dog Skeleton.”

To those who know him best, it is no surprise that Mr. Van Dyck has excelled as both a painter and teacher, because throughout his life, his hands have been working, creating, and fixing as he has employed phenomenal craftsmanship to create his art. We look forward to seeing what innovation, curiosity, and creativity Peter Van Dyck employs in his next endeavor, and we are pleased to present him with The Shipley School’s 2012 Young Alumni Award.

I am honored and surprised to have been chosen for this award. I would like to thank all of my teachers at Shipley, especially those with whom I worked closely and who helped foster my interest in making paintings: Mr. Baris, Ms. Wagner and Dr. Morinelli.

Things were not looking good for me when I transferred to Shipley as a sophomore. I had no direction and no distinguishing accomplishments. I was not an athlete, not a scholar, not an artist, not anything identifiable. I had nowhere to invest my energies, no activity on which to pin my identity. At my previous school I was an example of impending failure. But it was different at Shipley. I did not have to fit into a prescribed role. My classmates were kind and respectful and my teachers were supportive and patient. They took me seriously before I had the confidence to do so myself.

My experience at Shipley was analogous to my experience in the process of painting. When I paint I work without a plan, without a pre- determined method, with just a seed of genuine excitement about the activity, the motif and the possibilities of the painting. I work on the element in the painting that excites me most at a given moment.

By acting on that enthusiasm new possibilities get created; ideas and openings that could not have been predicted are generated and pursued. I proceed in this way, for hours, days, weeks, even years, hoping to discover an orchestration, a unity, a bigger meaning. Along the way I try not to ask myself if the painting is “good”, if it is coherent or if it fits a model that everyone will understand.

If you can maintain the courage to work in this way your work builds into something unforeseen, surprising, unique and specific to you because it is the product of your deepest, most honest energies. In order to work like this though, you must feel safe and supported; you must be free from dogmatic expectations about what you are supposed to make, what a painting (or a life) is supposed to look like.

Shipley created an environment where I was free to discover something about who I was and what I cared about. I saw possibilities here that I had not seen before and was able to embark on a journey, the results of which were unknown then and remain unknown today; I thank the school for making that possible.

I remember that recently I got very worried about the fact that my work never ends up looking like I intend it to. I told this to a friend and he looked puzzled and said “Of course it doesn’t, if it did, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

While at Shipley, Mr. Van Dyck was an enthusiastic student in the School’s art program. His considerable natural talent and his powerful drive to excel helped to propel his growth as both a painter and drawer. Even today, faculty members Mr. Baris and Ms. Wagner remember the remarkable portraits Mr. Van Dyck produced for his Senior Independent Study. After graduation, Mr. Van Dyck attended Wesleyan University until his passion for painting led him to Florence, Italy. There, his innovation, curiosity, and creativity quickly marked him as a standout student, and he later became an instructor at the renowned Florence Academy of Art.

Mr. Van Dyck’s work has shown in 50 exhibits in various galleries from 2001 to the present. In 2004, Shipley had the pleasure of hosting an alumni reception at the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco, where several of Mr. Van Dyck’s paintings were exhibited. In 2009 his oil on linen piece titled “Apartment Story” received third place honors at the prestigious Art of the State exhibition in Harrisburg, which recognized Mr. Van Dyck’s talent and creativity among a diverse field of both established and emerging artists. His most recent exhibition took place in April right here in Philadelphia, at Artists’ House Gallery in Old City.

Since 2003, Mr. Van Dyck has served as Assistant Professor at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and he has also been a Guest Instructor at the Wayne Art Center and at Gage Academy in Seattle, Washington. While sharing his gift with others, Mr. Van Dyck remains committed to his own craft. He recently discovered canine remains in the woods, brought the bones home, cleaned them, reassembled them, and then used them as the subject of a painting aptly titled “Dog Skeleton.”

To those who know him best, it is no surprise that Mr. Van Dyck has excelled as both a painter and teacher, because throughout his life, his hands have been working, creating, and fixing as he has employed phenomenal craftsmanship to create his art. We look forward to seeing what innovation, curiosity, and creativity Peter Van Dyck employs in his next endeavor, and we are pleased to present him with The Shipley School’s 2012 Young Alumni Award.

I am honored and surprised to have been chosen for this award. I would like to thank all of my teachers at Shipley, especially those with whom I worked closely and who helped foster my interest in making paintings: Mr. Baris, Ms. Wagner and Dr. Morinelli.

Things were not looking good for me when I transferred to Shipley as a sophomore. I had no direction and no distinguishing accomplishments. I was not an athlete, not a scholar, not an artist, not anything identifiable. I had nowhere to invest my energies, no activity on which to pin my identity. At my previous school I was an example of impending failure. But it was different at Shipley. I did not have to fit into a prescribed role. My classmates were kind and respectful and my teachers were supportive and patient. They took me seriously before I had the confidence to do so myself.

My experience at Shipley was analogous to my experience in the process of painting. When I paint I work without a plan, without a pre- determined method, with just a seed of genuine excitement about the activity, the motif and the possibilities of the painting. I work on the element in the painting that excites me most at a given moment.

By acting on that enthusiasm new possibilities get created; ideas and openings that could not have been predicted are generated and pursued. I proceed in this way, for hours, days, weeks, even years, hoping to discover an orchestration, a unity, a bigger meaning. Along the way I try not to ask myself if the painting is “good”, if it is coherent or if it fits a model that everyone will understand.

If you can maintain the courage to work in this way your work builds into something unforeseen, surprising, unique and specific to you because it is the product of your deepest, most honest energies. In order to work like this though, you must feel safe and supported; you must be free from dogmatic expectations about what you are supposed to make, what a painting (or a life) is supposed to look like.

Shipley created an environment where I was free to discover something about who I was and what I cared about. I saw possibilities here that I had not seen before and was able to embark on a journey, the results of which were unknown then and remain unknown today; I thank the school for making that possible.

I remember that recently I got very worried about the fact that my work never ends up looking like I intend it to. I told this to a friend and he looked puzzled and said “Of course it doesn’t, if it did, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.”