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Dave Sparks

Dave Sparks, is Dayton, Ohio's Renaissance Man, an artist with a vision, and a natural-born cultural observer and appears in "She" in several guises. Along with piano man, Brian "King Butter" Pelfrey, Sparks forms Dayton's "urban-Appalachian soul duo", Drexel. Sparks, whether through his music, painting (bedpans, or whatever) or photography, tells it like it is about the Gem City, while at the same time strives to help provoke a sense of hope and pride through his neighborhood revitalization projects. 

"Drexel Dave" Sparks and "Drexel Brian" (aka "King Butter") Pelfrey

CLICK HERE for the Dayton soul duo Drexel!

CLICK HERE for Dave Sparks Bedpan Art!

CLICK HERE for the "Real Dayton Ohio"!

Watch the following video for a refreshing glimpse into the mind, and musical genius, of "Drexel Dave" Sparks!

"A Huffman Hill Companion" (featuring the mystery man in the periphery, Brian "King Butter" Pelfrey)

Dave's Bio:

Dave Sparks is "artist, activist, writer, home remodeler, school bus driver, labor union leader, cook, dad and beau, not necessarily in that order."

The sordid life of Drexel David Sparks (taken from the Bedpan Art website)

Born the son of a poor Southern Baptist Preacher from Drexel, Ohio who took his family on a 10-year odyssey of life in poor mountain coal mining towns, migrant worker villages and inner-city environs, David B. Sparks endured and shed a life of pain and brutality in the military industrial high school football complex and turned it into a quest to create beauty.

Sparks grew up cast as an All-Star defensive lineman, and later, US Army Combat Engineer.

After a two-week Ohio National Guard annual camp in the hills of Southeastern Ohio, Sparks embarked upon writing a famous underground piece of gonzo commentary, Briar Zen, which he wrote while serving as a reporter at The Franklin Chronicle Newspaper in Franklin, Ohio.

After Briar Zen was published by the now defunct Raven Graphics Publishing House in Franklin, OH (only 100 copies are known to exist), he delved headfirst into publishing Fat City News, The World's Lone Repository of Outlaw Journalism, which was one one the first magazines of outsider literature published on the World Wide Web, praised by publications like Internet Life, Zug and many more. After Fat City News came to a screeching halt for reasons still unknown, Sparks began creating visual art and music that is capitvatingly beautiful, borderline insane, intelligently witty, iconoclastic and unique all at once.

Sparks' and fellow songwriter Brian Pelfrey's musical project drexel has received kudos from around the globe for its musicianship, lyricism and unique sound, garnering fans as diverse as former Tom Waits sax man Ralph Carney, and modern American songwriting genius Chuck Cleaver, the influential and globally respected fluxblog, as well as a small but fantically loyal following of fans from across the globe. In addition to his work with drexel, Sparks is constantly creating new and unique pieces of visual art, as well as photgraphic exhibitions that draw upon the surly as well as surreal.

Sparks lives and works in Dayton, Ohio, where he is able to draw upon inspiration from America's post-industrial Urban/Appalachian ghetto wasteland on a daily basis.

When he is not creating art, he stays busy with his job as a Dayton Public Schools bus driver, where he proudly serves with honor as the Vice President of the local bus drivers union, #627, Ohio Association of Public School Employees Union, parenting two daughters, two dogs, two cats, a garden, and building his non-profit arts organization.

100% of all profits made from the sale of Sparks' artwork go to fund Project Cityhood, a non-profit organization dedicated to suffusing inner-city neighborhoods with a re-appreciation of color, beauty, humor and art by providing opportunities for neighborhood residents - young and old - to develop artscapes throughout their neighborhood and make a better life for themselves and those around them.

Additional trivia on the artist include the fact that he is a distant relative of country music legend Merle Haggard.