Let me continue and finish up telling about how I came to be a painter. I had fallen from my ladder, been injured, started painting with surprising results and became obsessed with improving as a painter. This is all in Starting Out: Part I on this blog.
So there I was painting away, assembling a mish-mosh of paper and board with smears of paint. Some pieces really hit and some didn’t but, as in any endeavor, there was a lot to be learned from the misses. The missteps defined strengths and weaknesses. A time pass and I felt that the work was growing and was becoming a true expression of myself but I wasn’t thinking I was any more than an avid hobbyist at this point.
I had bought a painting or two over the years from the West End Gallery in Corning, NY. One of the owners at that time was Tom Gardner, also a well-known painter and teacher. Tom has a knack for conversation and I would occasionally stop in and we’d end up pulling out chairs in the middle of the spacious gallery and just shoot the breeze for a couple of hours. It was during one such talk that Tom asked if I painted. I hemmed and hawed a bit then confessed that I had puttered around a little. Tom told me that I should bring some stufff in and he’d be glad to critique it but to be prepared to accept a harsh judgement if the work deserved it. I hesitatingly agreed.
A week or so later I showed up at the gallery and Tom, seeing me, started to laugh. I was hauling my pieces in an old blue milk crate with pieces of paper and cardboard sticking out all over the place. It was not the organized portfolio of a serious artist or student. Tom hunkered down and began shuffling through the pile of work and turned to me.
“I’ve got one question for you,” he said, pausing for a beat. “Where the hell have you been?”
I was shocked and thrilled. It was a validation of the work. He saw something original and strong in the work, saw real possibility. My head reeled. About this time, co-owner Linda Gardner walked in and looked over Tom’s shoulder for a few minutes. After a moment she turned to me.
“Can you have 10 or 12 of these ready by next week for our next opening”
I can still remember the giddiness I felt from this unexpected turn of events. A new possibility opened before me in that one moment, that one simple question. I said yes. of course I could have the work ready. I wanted to be confident even though I had no idea how to present the work properly. But I knew I would learn and learn quickly because there was new horizon in front of me now, an opportunity that I knew I could not squander. I would give it everything I had.
So, it was started. Here is one of the first pieces I exhibited and I believe the first piece I ever sold:
Anyway, that’s how I first came to show my work publicly. I’ll talk more about that in later posts.
Redtree Times 