Art Education

But I should stop digressing on these figures from days at Shell; though they bring back very nostalgic memories, they are only names to anyone who is likely to read this and thus have no particular significance except to me. When I digressed I was about to start writing about the drawing and watercolor hobby that developed after we retired here in Ashland. As I mentioned I had for a long time composed Christmas and greeting cards and had participated in a figure drawing class during Elderhostel class at Eastern Oregon State College, after retirement of course and about 1985 I’d guess.

My development in drawing in retirement actually started considerably before that. The year 1975 saw no development along this line as I spent a good part of the year in Houston “consulting.” In the next year or so I started what I would call the mechanical-subject period. One winter I started to make some drawings of antique trucks and while I was doing this I had the thought that it would be interesting and add to the effect of the drawings if they would be in color. This led me to take my first art class at the college, a beginning watercolor class under Jim Doerter.

Doerter was an interesting individual, and a good teacher. The class not only exposed the students to watercolor paraphernalia, but went on to explore the various techniques that artists have employed in the medium, cost-saving practices for amateurs, the cutting of mats ad some exposure to watercolor art. Doerter was interested in Oriental art and I recall seeing some of the Japanese items he brought to class. In connection with the class he had the students come to his house to see his collection of paintings etc., also his collection of headgear; I believe Jean went along with me to this. It was I think on the basis of what I learned in Doerter’s class that I went on to make quite a number of antique truck watercolors. Somewhere along the line Jean was instrumental in bringing these to the attention of Judy Howard who at the time was just starting her art gallery in Ashland.

She arranged to have a joint show of these with the paintings of another local artist Robert Devoe. Devoe at the time was a teacher (English I believe, not in the art department) whose paintings were in the super-realistic school of painting. Such paintings have a current vogue and he was successful enough subsequently to retire from his college teaching and to devote all his time to painting.

I can’t say I like Devoe’s paintings, which sell for rather high price and I gather quite handily. To me they are little more than large color photographs, high on technique but low on intrinsic artistry. Included in the show, as to my part, were two India ink drawings of two antique cars — a Stutz Bearcat and an ornate town car (Rolls Royce? Pierce Arrow?). These were not listed for sale as were the truck pictures, and now adorn the wall near the dining area window here. I still like them though they are a technique and a style that I would no longer attempt.

As a result of the show I sold, I seem to recall, one fire truck picture for maybe $100 or so. Later I turned to pictures of old tractors and from these I have given one to Vincent (of the old Hart Parrs that Uncle Carl used for threshing — that is the large ones) and one to Ray, time a Rumely Oil-Pull which he knew from his days on the ranch in the Napa valley as a boy. I have several, framed, myself as well as an assortment of framed truck pictures, left over from the show at Hanson Howard that never sold.

After the introductory class in watercolor with Mr. Doerter I took a more advanced class from Cliff Sowell. He was really the watercolor specialist on the college faculty, and was quite a good watercolorist, but he wasn’t the teacher that Doerter was and I didn’t get as much out of his class.

Through his class however I did become aware of the watercolor seminars each summer at the college, of which he was the guiding light. Each year there would be four of these seminars each lasting two weeks and with an established figure in the watercolor field as teacher. For a number of years in the late 1970s and early 1980s I would take one or perhaps a couple of these seminars each year. I recall such names as Millard Sheets (perhaps the most prestigious of the seminar teachers, and an instructor that Fern, Jean’s sister, had when she was in school at the California School of Fine Arts in Berkeley), Morris Shubin, Phil Austin and Judi Betts.

For all his renown I wasn’t really impressed by Sheets, Austin was more to my liking both as an artist and teacher, but the best insofar as teaching was concerned was Judi Betts. She was actually a public school teacher until she retired several years ago so she was really a teacher, whereas the others teaching was more or less incidental.

In the seminars, the mornings would often by conducted at the college and the sessions would formally conclude about noon, but the paining etc. would continue well into the afternoon. Then there would be onsite sessions as in Lithia Park, Howard Prairie and the Nichols Ranch. While I don’t recall much specifically of what was said and done in these seminars, I think that the contributed substantially to my development.

Sowell eventually came to feel that the college did not appreciate the time and effort he put into arranging the seminars and decided to set up the programs on the ranch near Cave Junction that he co-owned with his sister. The year the first program was to be held he was chasing some cattle on the ranch, had a heart attack and expired. With his death the seminars at the college became a thing of the past.

Since then I have taken further classes at the college, general drawing, oil painting, figure drawing and figure painting. Except for the oil painting class these have all been taught by a relatively new instruction at the college, Margaret Sjogren. Actually she was a replacement on the faculty occasioned by Cliff Sowell’s death.

Like Judi Betts, she is an excellent teacher. She came into teaching late, after having decided that her earlier work (I think in the business field) was unproductive and unsatisfying. Like Betts she is also a working artist, though I regard her work as less interesting than the watercolors of Betts. I feel that much of my interest and development can be ascribed to her classes. Some of the college classes, including the earlier seminars etc. were taken for credit, some were only audited and few were taken simply as a participant (no record kept) since Oregon law has the provision that persons over 65 may attend classes, free of charge, provided there is room in the classes.

The Rogue Gallery in Medford also has sponsored classes in the past and I have taken a couple of week-long watercolor classes, and a drawing class (also for one week) plus a couple of shorter classes. In the past couple of years there have been figure drawing or painting classes at the gallery, with no instruction, and I have participated in two of them. Although I still find it interesting drawing from a live model, attending classes represents an effort and furthermore at this stage of my development as an artist I find that I do not need a model for any drawing or painting I might wish to do. Newspapers and magazines provide a good source of what I would call the basic pose situations which is all that is really required. The anatomical features can easily be provided.

Actually a model is not needed for these as pictures in magazines, newspapers, books provided all of these in graphic detail, and indeed library references provide information on the few anatomical features that as customarily proscribed in newspapers etc.