For about three years, I’ve been working as a part-time technician for a Miami and Los Angeles-based company that specializes in the conservation of art and architecture. We primarily work with museums, cultural organizations, city project managers, and private art collectors around the country.

Part-time can at times feel like full-time, depending on the scale, complexity or urgency of a project. But a day in the life of this job is never boring. Today, I could be working on a Thomas Hirschhorn piece made out of found objects, and the next day, we could be working on an early 20th century coral stone canal at a museum.

As a tech, I work alongside a lead technician, who briefs me on each project before we start our work. I’ve learned tons working in this field: how different materials react to the elements, how to treat various metals, woods, stones, and more.

I devote my othereight hours (and sometimes longer than that) to make historically accurate maritime paintings. I spend many hours researching before composing each work. The research phase takes the longest. For example, for a painting that depicts the famous RMS Titanic docked in Southampton, England, on April 1912, I had to do research on the entire area and find out how it would have appeared in April 1912.

For such an ambitious painting, I rely heavily on historical photographs, I search many archives around the world to hunt down the one image I am seeking. I also collect and use many postcards from the period (some are postmarked 1905, 1908 and even 1912). There is lots of detective work involved, including making sure I know when a specific image was taken, finding out who took it so that I can give credit to the artist and learning everything else I can about the image.

My intent is to re-create an event, place and things that have for many numbers of reasons changed dramatically over time. But no matter how much research I do, each piece will not be flawless or historically complete. Some things will be missing, lost, and hidden from recorded history. But I don’t lose sleep when I can’t figure out, “What does that sign on the side of the building say???”

Given that my work can be very technical, I must balance the analytical and rational side of the brain with my creative and intuitive side. To do that, I paint a subject matter that I love: the sea. Over the past four years, I have created a series of wave paintings that reflect my observations and experiences with the sea. I go out into the ocean with my DSLR and take hundreds of images. I later head to my studio to select a very few images. I zoom into a specific area of each photo, crop it and print various color selections of the image. I never rely wholeheartedly on one photo. Cameras never capture light and subtle intricacies as well the human eye. I paint in a way that is very intimate and close.

I use what I learn creating these water paintings in my historical maritime work. Viewers often compliment my historical maritime work for depicting such “amazing water” and “beautiful skies.” I feel that understanding nature cannot only be accomplished by technical measures. Sometimes, one just has to feel and be open to experiencing it.

see more of David's work at 

www.davideolivera.com