My Artwork
Below are links to photo albums of various pieces that I have done. My artwork is something that began emerging in my late 20's with oil painting. I "took lessons" from a local artist in Collinsville, AL where I was the Methodist clergyman for five years. She had a studio in her basement, and a handful of us gathered there once a week. After a year or so of painting in oils, I noticed some of her work that looked very different. Watercolor. I had to do it, immediately. It remains my favorite medium.
After I started playing with watercolors, I found a retired woman in the same community who painted in watercolor exclusively. People said she was crazy. I sat with this crazy lady in her back yard several times that summer, and we painted together. She refused to "teach" me. We just painted together. Nothing I did was wrong. Hers was a wonderful insanity. I want to be crazy like that.
Some 15 years later, another artist, in Birmingham, offered acrylics classes at the Jewish Community Center. I worked with her for awhile, too. Her work was modern and eclectic, and she invited a kind of freedom, play and exploration with acrylics. She also encouraged us to work on large canvases, which I did. So, all three media have had their place in my work. When I paint, it is because something has suddenly seized my inner attention. It continues to evolve.
I have included everything that I still have--the good, the bad and the ugly, so to speak. Honestly, ninety percent of what is here are things I did, didn't like, and have not looked at in years. When I went back through everything, there are things there that I likely intended to throw out, and now find them rather stunning! There are other things that I think I considered pretty good that look to me now as very stilted and rigid. And so it goes. Almost all of the "portraits" that I tried were bombs. I still think so. When I was attempting them, I knew nothing of the proportions of a human face, the golden mean, etc, and now that I do, I have not tried once since. I may again.
I paint because I enjoy the "no place" that it takes me to, and it allows me to exist in "no time". It doesn't have to please anyone, so I paint for "no one".
Post scriptum: After I first wrote the above, a friend who calls himself Bodhi, sent me the following. It is such a testament to both art and to those people and settings that honor the human being and that are non-judgmental, that I asked him to let me copy it here. He graciously agreed:
"Your story about the retired woman and the watercolor reminded me of a story from my childhood. When I was about six or seven I went to visit my grandmother in a city nearby and she rented an apartment downstairs to an 86 year old woman who would sit at her window and paint with watercolors. I spent an afternoon with her painting, and it really affected me. I had an incredible time with her and I remember her patiently working with me and like you said, nothing I did was wrong. It had affected me so deeply that for my whole life everytime I saw or thought about watercolors I would think about the MANY afternoons I spent painting with this old lady. Now fast forward almost thirty years later, I was talking to my grandmother last year and was asking her about that lady and how many times I painted with her and she said that it was only ONE AFTERNOON and that she DIED right after that. I was stunned! My memories of that afternoon were so vivid that I could have sworn that I was over there many times.
So now as I look at your beautiful paintings I am once again reminded of that magical afternoon in the late late 70's with that magical old lady painting in front of her enormous window. Thank you for that Robert and thank you for sharing your artwork".......Bodhi