The Three Dominoes
In light of the article on January 22nd in Low Country Weekly (http://www.lcweekly.com/art/5760-new-light-new-life), I thought I would do something each day over the next week or so. This is something I have wanted to do at some point over the last 18 months…..to recognize one individual each day who has been instrumental to me in my own artistic development and growth over what is now 15 years since I re-ignited my pursuit of visual poetry in fine art.
Today's blog actually recognizes three individuals. These individuals remind me of 3 dominoes as each one led to the other. Little did these three individuals know at the time they would have a profound impact that literally changed the life of an individual forever!
The individual was me, at the age of 40. It all began in 2005 when Betty Layman, an artist and neighbor who lived down the street from us in Simpsonville, KY came to my home for a party or gathering of some sort. On a wall in a walk-in pantry hung a watercolor of some onions I did when I was 16 years old. Betty commented that I really had something and I should not let my artistic abilities go to waste. She referred me to an art studio in Louisville and my journey began at Schrodt Art Studio in 2005. I think the evening that Betty came to our home was the one and only time during the 20 or so years we lived in that house. Had Betty not seen that painting, this blog likely stops right here! Thank you Betty!
Judy was an artist of course and had taken over the operation of the studio from her mother, Mary Louise Schrodt who had made quite a name for herself painting still life and iconic scenes from St. Matthews, a charming neighborhood in Louisville.
I think this was the first time I ever painted in oils. In high school I had painted with acrylics, watercolor, tempera paints and other media but not oil. The very first painting I did was of a water lily. At Schrodt, I learned to use an isolator which was simply a white sheet of paper with a hole or two cut out and one of the holes had a black circle around it. Of course, the lesson was that colors can appear a certain way based on other colors surrounding them so the isolator was used to help students identify the color they needed to mix. The black circle was used to again distinguish the darks more accurately. It was the same concept I learned years later while plein aire painting with the viewfinder many artists use today. It also has a small hole in the corner to help "isolate" a particular color or value in the landscape.
Schrodt Art Studio had a social component too in that the classes I attended were typically in the evening. So after work, I would come and join 15 or so other people and of course there was plenty of wine to be drank, music to listen to and friends to be made (please don't confuse this with those wine and paint venues you see now, Schrodt was more about instruction, learning the basics, color mixing, stretching your canvas, etc. than what those venues are about). Schrodt was typically filled with students who painted for a hobby primarily and I made a lot of good friends there who I still stay in touch with today.
I think in year two of my time at Schrodt I won Best of Show at the Student Art show and someone actually bought the painting. I was stunned! It was about this time too that I started thinking about getting a bit more serious about this art thing. I think I started looking at various art magazines and realizing there was a whole lot more to this than I realized. The plein aire movement really had not begun to gain the momentum that it has over the last 10 years or so as I recall, but from what I had been reading, learning to paint the landscape in plein aire was very important if you were going to have any chance of producing quality landscape paintings. I ended up signing up for an introductory plein aire workshop at the Scottsdale Artist School in Arizona by the artist who I will discuss in one of the coming blog posts.
Back to Schrodt......I think it was around 2006/2007.....I told Judy that I was seriously giving this some thought to pursue art in a more professional manner. I had actually entered a show in Nashville sponsored by the Tennessee Art League, called the Central South Art Exhibition, I believe. To my surprise I got in! This was a national juried show or at least maybe limited to a handful of states, nonetheless to get in amongst all the entries this early in my journey was quite a thrill (10-15% of close to 1,000 entries). I also ended up winning the People's Choice Award and I think at that point I was seriously thinking about a second career, maybe not quite a new and only career, yet!
Judy was instrumental and did two things for me. First, she was able to arrange for me to meet in person, photographer Julius Friedman to get his insights on pursuing this as a career. Julius was the famed photographer from Louisville whose work was known around the world. His most famous image was for a poster promoting the Louisville Ballet. Julius told me if I wanted to pursue a career in fine art, I should really consider leaving Louisville. His perspective was that people would rather drive 5 hours to Chicago buy a piece of art there and bring it back to Louisville even though it was likely more expensive than quality art they could buy in Louisville.....BUT they could tell all their friends, we bought this in Chicago.
So, with that bit of counsel, I did research several "art" markets and determined the Charleston/Beaufort/Savannah strip of cities was the best fit for pursuing this down the road, later in life, maybe in retirement. We had been to Charleston a couple times and loved everything about it.
We later bought a lot in a development called Bull Point around 2008 or 2009. It is located 21 miles west of Beaufort right on Hwy. 17 and held that for nearly 7-8 years before accelerating the plan, building a house and moving for good to make this a reality.
Looking back at the last 3 years, the advice Julius gave me was profound. While the Louisville art scene has improved slightly over the years, I cannot see myself having anywhere near the level of sales I have had over the last 3 years, and particularly in the last 18 months had I try to do this in Louisville. Many people likely don't know that John Michael Carter, former president of Oil Painters of America has lived in Louisville for most of his professional artistic life, and Kim English, a fantastic painter recently made Louisville his home. However, to my knowledge there are not any galleries in Louisville who carry their work, interesting. Don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful place to live, very affordable, and has a lot going for it. Julius passed away in 2017 at the age of 74. Rest in peace Julius and thank you for the advice!
The second thing Judy did was to refer me to another artist in Louisville to take some classes from, a working artist who will be the subject of tomorrow's post and thank you blog, #2. Judy thought more about my growth as an artist than her revenue stream and for that I am forever grateful. Thank you Judy!
Cheers!
Michael
Today's blog actually recognizes three individuals. These individuals remind me of 3 dominoes as each one led to the other. Little did these three individuals know at the time they would have a profound impact that literally changed the life of an individual forever!
The individual was me, at the age of 40. It all began in 2005 when Betty Layman, an artist and neighbor who lived down the street from us in Simpsonville, KY came to my home for a party or gathering of some sort. On a wall in a walk-in pantry hung a watercolor of some onions I did when I was 16 years old. Betty commented that I really had something and I should not let my artistic abilities go to waste. She referred me to an art studio in Louisville and my journey began at Schrodt Art Studio in 2005. I think the evening that Betty came to our home was the one and only time during the 20 or so years we lived in that house. Had Betty not seen that painting, this blog likely stops right here! Thank you Betty!
 |
| Judy Warren, owner and operator of Schrodt Art Studio |
Judy was an artist of course and had taken over the operation of the studio from her mother, Mary Louise Schrodt who had made quite a name for herself painting still life and iconic scenes from St. Matthews, a charming neighborhood in Louisville.
 |
| Mary Louise Schrodt, painting of Byck's department store in Louisville |
I think this was the first time I ever painted in oils. In high school I had painted with acrylics, watercolor, tempera paints and other media but not oil. The very first painting I did was of a water lily. At Schrodt, I learned to use an isolator which was simply a white sheet of paper with a hole or two cut out and one of the holes had a black circle around it. Of course, the lesson was that colors can appear a certain way based on other colors surrounding them so the isolator was used to help students identify the color they needed to mix. The black circle was used to again distinguish the darks more accurately. It was the same concept I learned years later while plein aire painting with the viewfinder many artists use today. It also has a small hole in the corner to help "isolate" a particular color or value in the landscape.
 |
| First Canvas, Michael Reibel, 2005 |
Schrodt Art Studio had a social component too in that the classes I attended were typically in the evening. So after work, I would come and join 15 or so other people and of course there was plenty of wine to be drank, music to listen to and friends to be made (please don't confuse this with those wine and paint venues you see now, Schrodt was more about instruction, learning the basics, color mixing, stretching your canvas, etc. than what those venues are about). Schrodt was typically filled with students who painted for a hobby primarily and I made a lot of good friends there who I still stay in touch with today.
I think in year two of my time at Schrodt I won Best of Show at the Student Art show and someone actually bought the painting. I was stunned! It was about this time too that I started thinking about getting a bit more serious about this art thing. I think I started looking at various art magazines and realizing there was a whole lot more to this than I realized. The plein aire movement really had not begun to gain the momentum that it has over the last 10 years or so as I recall, but from what I had been reading, learning to paint the landscape in plein aire was very important if you were going to have any chance of producing quality landscape paintings. I ended up signing up for an introductory plein aire workshop at the Scottsdale Artist School in Arizona by the artist who I will discuss in one of the coming blog posts.
Back to Schrodt......I think it was around 2006/2007.....I told Judy that I was seriously giving this some thought to pursue art in a more professional manner. I had actually entered a show in Nashville sponsored by the Tennessee Art League, called the Central South Art Exhibition, I believe. To my surprise I got in! This was a national juried show or at least maybe limited to a handful of states, nonetheless to get in amongst all the entries this early in my journey was quite a thrill (10-15% of close to 1,000 entries). I also ended up winning the People's Choice Award and I think at that point I was seriously thinking about a second career, maybe not quite a new and only career, yet!
Judy was instrumental and did two things for me. First, she was able to arrange for me to meet in person, photographer Julius Friedman to get his insights on pursuing this as a career. Julius was the famed photographer from Louisville whose work was known around the world. His most famous image was for a poster promoting the Louisville Ballet. Julius told me if I wanted to pursue a career in fine art, I should really consider leaving Louisville. His perspective was that people would rather drive 5 hours to Chicago buy a piece of art there and bring it back to Louisville even though it was likely more expensive than quality art they could buy in Louisville.....BUT they could tell all their friends, we bought this in Chicago.
So, with that bit of counsel, I did research several "art" markets and determined the Charleston/Beaufort/Savannah strip of cities was the best fit for pursuing this down the road, later in life, maybe in retirement. We had been to Charleston a couple times and loved everything about it.
We later bought a lot in a development called Bull Point around 2008 or 2009. It is located 21 miles west of Beaufort right on Hwy. 17 and held that for nearly 7-8 years before accelerating the plan, building a house and moving for good to make this a reality.
Looking back at the last 3 years, the advice Julius gave me was profound. While the Louisville art scene has improved slightly over the years, I cannot see myself having anywhere near the level of sales I have had over the last 3 years, and particularly in the last 18 months had I try to do this in Louisville. Many people likely don't know that John Michael Carter, former president of Oil Painters of America has lived in Louisville for most of his professional artistic life, and Kim English, a fantastic painter recently made Louisville his home. However, to my knowledge there are not any galleries in Louisville who carry their work, interesting. Don't get me wrong, it is a wonderful place to live, very affordable, and has a lot going for it. Julius passed away in 2017 at the age of 74. Rest in peace Julius and thank you for the advice!
 |
| Julius Friedman, photographer |
Cheers!
Michael
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