American Society of Marine Artists Winter 2015 a P u B l i c a t i o n o f t h e a m e r i c a n s o c i e t y o f m a r i n e a r t i s t s DeDicateD to the Promotion of american marine art anD the free exchange of iDeas Between artists Visit our Web Site at: www.americansocietyofmarineartists.com Notes From byBrush Charles Raskob Robin Hillson Brush Hill Studios, Washington, CT This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of this column, which has been produced every quarter since. It began a series of “notes” or suggestions about things that I had either made or found that facilitated painting in my studio but then evolved into recording opinions ASMA artists had about art topics. Some of these were quite controversial and generated a good deal of interest. What color is the Pacific and does it differ from the Atlantic and, if so, why? Oddly, this led to focus on the artists who had these opinions and thus "Brown County Winter" - 21" x 29" - Acrylic on Paper was born the biographical format that we have used for years – a format that JERRY SMITH necessarily so and I had better find the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Signature Member, someone who could teach me how to Institution and others value sufficiently to Crawfordsville, Indiana paint. Unlike today, artists’ workshops collect the articles as part of their ongoing Web site: jsmithstudio.com were not so common but after some research I found an artist in Maine, Don effort to document the lives of American Anyone would be Stone, whose weeklong workshop looked artists. proud to have achieved promising and, importantly, whose work I what Jerry Smith did in In the last issue we met a new admired. So I signed up.” the first three decades member of the Society who, with her of his life in Indiana for This was in 1976 when Don and Jerry typical energy and sense of direction, it is quite remarkable and, for his family, were young men. It also was the year the has already become quite engaged in the unprecedented. However, what he did modern marine art movement in America Society. Sheri Farabaugh, who celebrates after that few have the courage and began when a parade of “tall ships” her tenth year as an artist this year, brings fortitude to do. Encouraged and with the sailed into New York Harbor on July the disciplines of two former careers – a support of his wife, Cindy, a professional Fourth to commemorate the Bicentennial biochemist in the brewery industry and a teacher and mother of their two children, of the nation’s Independence. Unknown Jerry left the comfort and security of tax accountant – to her art to produce a to either man, this set wheels in motion corporate America to become an artist. fresh and singular approach to painting that created the American Society of water. In this issue we turn to two ASMA Commendable, indeed, but there Marine Artists in 1978 – an organization artists who have developed their own was a problem. “I have always been able that would play an important role in both special and successful approaches to to draw – even as a kid – so I thought of their professional lives. Jerry is now marine painting. naturally I could paint and be an artist. an ASMA Signature Member and Don a Soon, however, I found this was not Fellow of the Society. www.americansocietyofmarineartists.com | 7 Notes From Brush Hill "Sticks and Stones" - 11" x 29" - Watercolor Reflecting on the Stone workshop, A Man of Many Mediums The Christmas Gift and Its Appeal Jerry says, “Don was a great guy and a Jerry continued to paint in watercolor Before Jerry left the comfort of great teacher. He was more on track than for many years after his workshop with corporate life, he had mentioned to his anyone I ever worked with and he did a Don Stone. However, Jerry has, as we shall young spouse that he always had an lot for my career and me. At the time, I see, a bent for experimenting – a basic interest in art and that “someday I might was painting watercolors while Don and curiosity about art itself. Soon this led try it.” Knowing her man probably better most of the workshop was into oils. It did to another aquacious medium, acrylics, than he knew himself, Cindy gave him a not matter to Don for he worked in both and he became as adept in it as he was paint set for Christmas. Jerry soon realized mediums and said, ‘Focus on painting in watercolors. “It offered the richness art had more appeal than what he was not the medium – the composition, of oil, the transparency (if needed) of doing working in the Human Resources values and elements of the painting.’ watercolors but with the additional virtue Department of R. R. Donnelley & Sons Not knowing much about painting at the of drying fast. Some dozen or so years so he launched out on a new career. time, the more Don taught me the more ago things slowed down a bit so I had Jerry does what appeals to him and he I wanted to learn. It took a while – years time for more experimenting so I joined has been fortunate to retain this attitude – for me to absorb all the information he a new organization, the Indiana Plein as an artist: He paints what he wants to gave.” In subsequent years, Jerry went Air Painters Association (IPAPA). I had paint, not what a prospective collector on to study under Louise B. Hansen long done direct sketches from subjects or the market wants. This is best seen in his choice of subject matter: His beloved (1946 - 2014), a Signature Member of the in the field and would translate these Indiana and his adopted maritime New American Watercolor Society who lived into paintings in the studio so it was not England. and taught in Indiana until she died last so much plein air that was new for me but rather the medium they used, oil. It month. Jerry and his wife attended her Love of the Land: seemed to work so much better in the memorial service. He also studied under Indiana the Hoosier State 1 circumstances. Gradually I began to favor Floyd D. Hopper (1908 – 1984) whose it and now do most of my work in oils.” Jerry was born in Terre Haute to career spanned six decades and “who Clarice Ethel Orth Smith and Lorain was the guru of watercolor in Indiana.” Smith2 on January 31, 1944 and grew up (Footnotes) in Sandcut, Indiana with two sisters who 1 There appears to be a consensus about the origin of the name beautiful Henry S. Lane Antebellum Mansion, the Colonel Isaac were considerably older. (If you view “Hoosier,” namely that there are a lot of opinions but no C. Elston House and the Montgomery County Jail are open to Indianapolis as being in the center of the established facts about its etymology. the public. state, Sandcut would be about seventy- 2 Jerry notes, “My father was named after Lorain, Ohio. My 5 Wallace served on the Military Commission that tried John grandmother was riding the train through Ohio and liked the Wilkes Booth’s assistants in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln five miles to the west.) His father had a name of the city. I'm glad I wasn't a Junior!” as well as presided over the court that resulted in the execution of farming background before he became 3 Founded in 1864, R. R. Donnelley & Sons has grown to about Henry Wirz for the Union deaths at the infamous Confederate 57,000 employees with manufacturing and printing operations Andersonville Prison. In addition to his post-war writings, he a steel worker and semi-rig truck driver in North America, Latin America, Asia and Europe. With sales served as Governor of the New Mexico Territory and Ambassador while his mother was an elementary of over $10 billion, the company ranks 264 of the Fortune 500 to Turkey. The design of the museum with its Byzantine, Greek school teacher before she owned and listing of America’s largest corporations. and Romanesque styles reflected Wallace’s interest in that part of 4 Other attractions include Wabash College that was established the world and the leading characters in books are found in the operated a rural grocery store and gas in 1832, two years before Crawfordsville was incorporated. The frieze running around the top of the walls. station in Sandcut. “I doubt if you’ll find 8 | ASMA NEWS AND JOURNAL Notes From Brush Hill Sandcut on the map anymore – it was just a crossroad in the middle of fields of corn.” Surprisingly, it still does appear on the map but a Google Earth visit shows only the gas station remains. Jerry remembers helping his mother in the grocery store while pumping gas at that station. He attended rural elementary school and high school and graduated from Terre Haute Garfield High School after the county schools were consolidated. There he met Cindy Kay Buchholz. They went on to Indiana State University where they both were the first in their respective families to graduate from college – she in three years and he in the usual four. They married November 25, 1964 while still in college. Following graduation in 1966 Jerry got a job with R.