Redtree Times

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.