The Starving Artist

I have painted on and off over the last five decades and then some. Since I had spent lots of time in the West, mostly the Southwest, I painted the beautiful scenery from that part of the country. In 1967 I lived briefly in Oklahoma and painted while I was there. I had hoped to get to the point where I could sell enough to make a living, but the Lord had other things in mind for me so that didn’t work out.

For several years I worked at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, mostly in the custodial area. The type of art I did was not something that institution encouraged. But I did get to know some of the students and some of them were interested in what I painted.

Anyway, in 1970, the students put on an art show entitled “Home on the Range–West by East.” I assume they gave it that title because most of the kids that entered their work in it were from the East. Their version of “the West” was one I was pretty much at odds with, having spent time out there, which I don’t think most of them ever did.

But there was one student that knew about my Western paintings, and he asked me to put some of them in this show. His name was Mark Reichert. He came out to where we lived at the time and looked over all my paintings and then he picked out a batch he felt had possibilities and took them for this show. They ended up hanging either six or eight of my pictures in this show, I don’t remember exactly and when the show went on, I actually sold one–a scene from the country in Western Nebraska. The man I sold it to later became a congressman from Rhode Island.

I always remembered Mark Reichert because he seemed to take a real interest in my work, even though it was much different than what he and most other students there did. Some students seemed to look down their noses at anyone who was not on their way to becoming a professional artist, but Mark Reichert never came across that way. He treated others as equals, at least in my case. Even after he left the school, he sent me a batch of old postcards with Western scenes on them to give me something to work from. I appreciated how he treated me–so differently than many other students.

At any rate it was because of Mark Reichert that I got to show my Western art at the Rhode Island School of Design, and I was grateful to him for that. I have continued to paint on and off over the years, have had work in art and craft shows just about every place we have lived and now and again I still manage to sell a few–but not enough to make a living at it. As I said earlier, the Lord had other plans for me. One thing He wanted me to do was write about the state of the country. I haven’t made a living at that either–as you can well imagine. But I try to do what the Lord wants me to do, and I don’t expect to get rich doing it. That’s not the real point, is it?