It recently occurred to me (when asked twice within an hour) that I don’t know what to say when people ask how long I’ve been painting. I could say since I was a teen since that was my first dive into a box of my dad’s oil paints but that is wildly misleading.
I could say since around the early to mid nineties since that’s when I got the big idea to try air brush painting which didn’t let me do details so I added them with brushes. That ended up being more of just an ongoing mess in my kitchen more than anything but I did produce a large black bass painting on a scrap piece of cloth which was sort of an accident. It ended up covering the back hatchback shelf of my little Toyota for all the world to see which was a bold move for me and my art.
This era is also around the time that I sketched out and ended up painting black and orange hornets playing drums on t-shirts for the entire drum line at Booker T. Washington. I did shirts for them for a second season but that was about the extent of that painting stint. I would be paint silent for another decade.
Then again, I could say around 2014 after I had done dog paintings for trophies at the Tulsa Boxer club shows years earlier and decided I wanted to start doing dog portraits for people. This was not a whole hearted attempt but it was definitely my comfort zone when it came to an occasional painting. Fur and fur only was a limitation I put on myself.
While all of these milestones did have me painting, they were sporadic endeavors which left my brush dry more than wet and a paint inventory that could easily fit in an infant shoe box. During all this time my preferred method of painting was easily done out of the lid of the paint bottle. (that makes me smile)
Then in 2017 for reasons I’m not even completely sure of and certainly cannot articulate, I bought some new paint, put in my headphones, dusted off my paint brushes and almost literally, out of sheer passion for paint, have not looked up since. This is when I feel like I really began but again, that is misleading.
So I guess I would have to conclude that the answer to how long would depend on what capacity of painting is being referred to: experimental, accidental, comfort zone or necessity and passion.
