Carny

I can paint anytime, anywhere. This is because I made stuff long before I knew what an artist was. I never aspired to be an artist; the word makes me cringe because it implies trying to win the approval of others. I started drawing in first grade, painting in fourth, and declared myself an artist at ten. No approval necessary.

My professional career kicked off at eighteen with two sales to a prominent local collector who saw my work in the Guild of South Carolina Artists exhibition at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston. I kissed the check and thought about ways to get my work seen by more people. When you’re unknown, the only way to get your work shown is to do it yourself. I exhibited in public libraries, restaurants, corporate hallways, a firehouse, a maximum-security prison, outdoor markets, and medical office lobbies, and even did impromptu shows by hanging paintings on the wrought-iron fences of downtown Charleston. All of those locations had one thing in common: they were places people had to be for other reasons. Whether having pudding or dialysis, people were moving from elevator to escalator, and therefore I had a millisecond to grab their attention.

Other than painting, two of my favorite things in the world are barbecue and magic, both of which can be found at carnivals and state fairs. I always admired the artists who painted circus banners for their design acumen, clarity of intention, and purposeful execution. They taught me that, if you are going to impinge on someone’s consciousness, even for a second, you have to grab them by the earlobes with a composition that looks good from twenty-five feet away. By copying such banners, I learned that larger shapes should occupy the perimeter and gradually get smaller as the eye winds into the climax of the image. Carnival posters also taught me that the entire rectangle itself should be considered the first form, just as the four sides supply the first four lines; everything that comes after should relate to those primary truths.

I still paint with the assumption that the viewer has somewhere else to be and I have less than a minute to convince them to slow down and look. From Giotto to John Kensett to Joseph Stella, great painting begins with confident, economical design.