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in his own words . . .
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I got started when I was about 13 years old. My father had a history of heart disease, and during the later part of his life he built an art room on the third floor of our house, started taking classes, and really found a passion that I don't believe he even knew he had. After he passed away, I just got curious and went upstairs into the art room.
Looking at all the different brands of paint he had, I was kind of overwhelmed by all the colors, so I started drawing instead. Charcoal. Pen. Faces. I realized pretty quick I had some sort of talent with faces,Â
so that's what I did.
From there I started doing portrait commissions. Baby portraits were easy because there really aren't a lot of lines in a baby's face. Then I got into oil painting. In college I was asked to do portraits for the university magazine: athletes, professors, educational leaders, and that's what I spent a lot of my time doing.
After college, art kind of became a second thought. Life happened. I got married, we had five children, I ran a business, and I kind of dropped painting for about 20 years. Every once in a while people would ask me,Â
"why haven't you painted?"
In 2006 I decided to get out of my business because I wanted to spend more time at home with my family. My wife finally said,Â
you go back to painting?"
So I signed up for classes at the Finishing School in Floral Park, New York.
"Why don'tÂ
As a freshman or sophomore in high school, my art teacher told us to draw whatever we wanted. I took four faces from National Geographic and made one drawing out of them. My teacher loved it so much he said,Â
"Get a copy, we're sending this to
Well... they wrote back and basically said if I ever did that again without copyright permission, they'd sue me. So my first recognition as an artist wasn't exactly the kind I was hoping for, but it definitely encouraged me to keep going.
painting was always in my system.
From there I started doing decorative finishes and custom work for people building homes around town. The finishes were beautiful, but they were also ahead of their time and expensive, so eventually I decided to settle down and focus on acrylic painting. That's where I've been ever since, kind of honing my skills and figuring out where I fit in this world.
Painting today is a great relaxing exercise. It helps me get through the day. It makes me think. A lot of times it surprises me. I'll step back and think,
Â
"Wow... I didn't think I could do
To all my artist friends out there, I hope you all do well. Nobody's in competition.
We're just doing what we love and that's enough.
National Geographic."
That's where I learned all kinds of decorative painting techniques like making furniture look a hundred years old, metallic finishes, industrial finishes, a whole lot of stuff. It was kind of a rebirth. It re-energized me and reminded me thatÂ
that."
James
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