Every artist is different. I have had little formal training. I studied art under an artist/teacher named Juanita Greene Parks for a year in 1982. The fundamentals I learned under her helped me to better grasp all that I had learned on my own up to that point. Ms. Parks had studied under several famous artists including Reginald Marsh and Robert Brackman. Brackman was perhaps the last living artist to have studied under Robert Henri, the leader of the Ashcan School.   So I consider myself a fourth generation Henri student.

Every artist is always a student. Every artist I believe is largely self taught. They just use different tools to learn.  The tools used may be schools, teachers, books, museums and art shows, other artists and the experience of creating itself.  My teacher used to say, “You learn to draw… by drawing.”

 

Growing up in a small rural town in upstate New York I had little exposure to art of any kind. I had to look hard for inspiration at times. My favorite Robert Henri quote is,  

  “Through art mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men.   These are the bonds of a great brotherhood.  Those who are of the Brotherhood know each other, and time and space can not separate them.”

This Brotherhood, which of course includes women has sustained and nurtured me through many lonely years as I struggled to become an “artist”.  Writers, poets, singers, sculptors, painters, teachers, philosophers, photographers, people of high character and artists of all kinds have inspired and encouraged me along the way.  I took from them freely and I give back freely…to any one who accepts.

The purpose of this web site is to express myself and to share my work…to give back freely.  I have included in this site an art journal, which will update people on the art I have been doing and the life I have been living. It’s my hope that I can give an idea of how the creative process works for me.  Of course I am just one example… every artist is different.

        -Arthur Barnes

Email Arthur Barnes

 

joarts4art@yahoo.com
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