ART SHOW- OCT 15 THRU NOV 30! @ FSG FINE JEWELRY IN SALADO.

Yes! I am installing a one-man show in Salado, Texas right now! It's called "50 Years an Artist in Texas," Most of the work is already up (over twenty paintings), still painting some others... Here are some that you can see if you are able to catch the exhibit- IF they have not been sold and carried off!

"Wonderful Day" 18 x 24, $575. The theme of the show is simple, "God still reins!"

"Red Oak Fire"- 11 x 14, $230

"Palo Duro Bison Honeymoon"- 11 x 14, $230

"Summer's Mill in the Morning Mist" 8 x 16, $230

"The Change of the Seasons"- 18 x 22, $650

This is first of show of its kind in a long time. There will be a great variety of sizes of paintings, from 5" x 7", to 3 ft by 4 ft. Some "Plein Air" art (sketched on location, 8 x 10's, 11 x 14's) have been "finished" and will be offered for sale. I hope that you can find your way to Salado to see it.

"As the Deer Pants for the Water"- 24 x 36, $1075

"Independence" (Independence, Texas)- 24 x 36, $1075

"McKittrick Canyon Romance"- 36 x 48, $1600

McKittrick Canyon Glory" 36 x 48, UNFRAMED, $1600

"Heavenly Pasture," Retired and Contented! 20 x 30, $720

"Deer Valley Bluebonnets"- 20 x 30, $720

"Grandma's Irises" 8 x10, $125

"Summer's Mill Falls" 11 x 14, $230

DREAM COME TRUE

It was certainly the biggest thing in my career. An artist's dream come true. A monster job, ultimately 140 feet of murals at the prestigious Star of the Republic Museum at Washington on the Brazos. And now slated for obliteration; strangely, another dream, now about to come true.

Several years ago I woke up with something like a night terror... once in a blue moon God puts a prophetic dream in my sub-conscious mind. I dreamed that they were painting over my murals at the museum... covering the walls with forest green. Off with the old, on with the thoughtless, artless dozer of progress. It was horrible.

“That was a BAD DREAM!” I thought to myself. But surely, they would never do THAT. Pardon me for saying, but my mural was not just large in the museum, it was large in my mind; my contribution to Texas History. Something to inspire the generations. Something which took three people and eight months to complete... and too wonderful and beautiful for any intelligent people to ever destroy.

But alas, that nightmare was also a “dream come true,” as future renovations are completed. If you loved it, you better go get one last look at it. The museum will go through a renovation, and the murals will be obliterated. What will go up to replace them? I do not know. But they we will never find an artist to put on those walls what they have enjoyed for the past twenty years. If they did, it would cost the State of Texas over to $100,000. And, it may not be as accurate or as comprehensive, or as well done. My guess is they plan some hi-tech digital screens to dazzle Texas school children, who do not have enough hi-tech screens already in their lives. I say, they do not have enough ART in their lives. Can you imagine the outcry when the Catholic Church does the same thing in the Sistine Chapel?

But that is the way of our culture these days... nothing is sacred, they are removing statues and markers left and right. The younger generations apparently want to interpret our history to their tastes and preferences. But I say it is symptomatic of a sick culture... one that has already witnessed so much destruction of our heritage... in the name of tolerance and inclusion! And one that has had to fight to save the ALAMO for God's sake. If Texas, and Texans no longer want the mural, well, it is their right. But I truly believe that whomever is making these decisions, like George P. Bush, will rue the day they messed with Texas, and took our heritage and our art so flippantly. And the loss will be on their short-sighted heads. But that's just me.

Whatever the case, I believe that it might take the destruction of these monuments to wake up the rest of us, to understand the intellectual and spiritual war we are in... and perhaps are in denial of. As the Huns move in and tear down much of what we love, and understand, and perhaps things we have taken for granted, until Texas is not Texas anymore.

Note: It cannot be removed. Painted directly on the gypsum walls... Removal of the pieces would be cost prohibitive, not to mention, who has a 10 x 100 ft. wall to offer to give it a home?

A new gallery to represent Cushman art!!!

I am pleased and excited to announce my new gallery affiliation: with FSG Fine Jewelry in Salado, Texas.

Frankie Gene Sidaras is the owner, artist and manager there at 401 S. Main, right across from the Shady Villa Hotel (formerly known as the Stagecoach Inn).

She is a jeweler with her own studio and gallery, and has several walls full of original art to compliment her business.

Please come by when you are in Salado and encourage us! Here are some of my works that you might see there...

"New" Old "Revisited" & Subjectified Works

Years ago a friend of mine visited my home, ready to purchase some art. He was in love with one large painting, of buffalo in a western landscape. "I'll buy it from you," He said, "if you will remove the buffalo..." I needed the money bad... and I did what he asked. He bought it. Then he was divorced and fell on hard times, and the painting was put in storage. He passed away later, and now I understand the painting is rotting in a barn. What artists must do sometimes to meet the public where they are (mentally or emotionally) is almost shameful. Great Art cannot be created by committee... But art patrons are not the worst in this kind of arm-twisting.

For many years, my galleries, those places which featured and marketed my art, asked for "pure landscapes." Subjects I was told, were sometimes off-putting to buyers... and made the selling of the art work more difficult, especially for designers and decorators, who were often involved in the transactions. One gallery, and my best one, would not take anything smaller than 24 x 36, and nothing with animals or people in it. They did not even want bridges, buildings, gates... nothing but pure landcape.

Needless to say, I had to make a living... and pure landscape was far easier to paint... so I filled the pigeon hole until the galleries all went under. When the music stopped, I had several large canvases ready to deliver to my main gallery when suddenly it was all over. Other galleries were winding down as well, and none wanted the huge canvases anymore... eventually none wanted any canvases.

It took me awhile... to see these works as... unfinished. They had been conceived as pure landscapes... and worked well as such. What subjects might be worthy in such a complete statement? Here are some solutions to that strange series of events... subjective art... sans subjects... then SUBJECTIFIED! Hopefully they have been improved... but don't worry, I'm not painting anything out!

Bread and Butter: Small Works

I have a great selection of new "Plein Air" field sketches available right now... they run around $250.00 - $300.00 (unframed).

"Grimes County Line" SOLD (12 x 24)

"Union Grove" (12 x 24)

"Summers Mill Falls" (11 x 14)

"Summers Mill" (11 x 14)

"Adams Rd Bluebonnets" (11 x 14)

"Old Baylor Spirit" (16 x 20)

Pet Portraits... You Bet

Show me an aritst who makes a living and I'll show you one who has painted pet portraits. Artists often avoid them, and only do them under duress, and there is a reason for that timidity. Portraits are difficult... and people who commission portraits have very specific expectations... and especially about the immortalization of a beloved pet. You may have to possess a dangerous amount of hubris to even take on such a task... but pet portraits are up there with the "best sellers," and can often be a key to financial survival.

Some of my first commissions 50 years ago were pet portraits... (I include livestock and horses in this category) and those jobs introduced me to the agony and ecstasy of pet portraiture. I did them, considering them the "dues" I had to pay... but benefitted greatly from the experiences, which drove me into new horizons. It was almost haunting when a lady I knew for years, one day told me that she had commissioned me to do her horse forty years before... and it had been so long that I did not even recognize her, or remember the painting. So that proves that no matter how daunting the task, you will not be scarred for life! And you will put a little bread on the table...

Portraits: Never Say Hate!

Portraits

Portraits are the most difficult, most frustrating, most controversial, and yet the least satisfying of all the things I do. I would say that I hate doing them, except that tomorrow somebody will ask me to do one... and I would be on record demonstrating a negative attitude. Otherwise I would say that I hate doing them.

NEVER THE LESS, we have to do them. There was a time, and I believe we are returning to that paradigm, where portraits were the most popular kind of art. Few people owned a landscape of any consequence, or any kind of genre art, but everybody had a still life or a portrait somewhere in their house. The still lifes were usually badly done vases of chrysanthemums or sunflowers, or some awful thing from somebody's kid in art school. But the portraits were pretty good. And that's because a portrait artist cannot be a bad portrait painter. You can wing it with flowers and clouds and 70% of most landscapes, but with portraits, you cannot get anything even a little wrong... or your client will not be pleased, and probably will not pay for your work. At least not happily.

This book jacket cover required a lot of reading and research, 

to create likenesses of Comanche Chief Ten Bears and Jesse Chisholm.
1984

So maybe it's not the doing of them, its the sour gut I hate, which I have until my customer has seen and smiled upon the likeness I have painted of their loved one. I'm not sure that I have ever been totally pleased with any portrait I have done. Even if the customer liked it, and paid me, and walked happily away. Nothing you do should cause you that much anxiety. And the anxiety is that no matter how much I strive, I have never been very good at portraits... but I had customers who begged me to just try one time for them. And I hate disappointing a customer worse than painting a portrait.

Nell Cushman, by Vera Reeks. An outstanding Houston portrait artist, Vera inspired me for a lifetime with this excellent likeness of my grandmother. 

I have known some excellent portrait artists. In fact as a child, one lived in the neighborhood and trained my mother how to paint. She painted from life. I have learned the hard way that painting a subject from life is the far more preferable approach. But I was too young to know about any of that, and missed a great opportunity to learn from a true master. But there was another reason that portraits never came easily, and that was that I never really wanted to be good at them. Portraits were just faces. Boring. People just sitting there. I wanted to paint happenings, grandiose panoramas. Portraits were for sissies.

A bronze,life-sized portrait of Harvey Mitchell, Bryan pioneer

1998

But I did them... because I liked to eat. And over the years I have done more than I ever planned. Portraits of wives, young couples, an airline pilot, a newspaper editor, and a few family members. You see, my in-laws were the first audience who demanded portraits- Art which one could relate to; Portraits of parents and grand parents and grand children. And then there were the folks who wanted a portrait of the their dog, their horse, or their first house. I've done them all.

An early attempt at portraiture in watercolor, of my girl friend.  Now my wife, this profile of Linda has stood the test of time.

1974

"Three Young Texans" 

1979

This watercolor of my niece was my first attempt to paint a portrait as a major work... The painting gave the gallery owner the creeps... but my wife loved it so we just kept it.

A good friend asked me to paint his brother, a handsome airline pilot, as a gift to him. He had since fallen intp ill-health and was confined to a wheel chair.  The portrait was to be a tribute top his sterling patriotism and service.

Finally, a Bryan businessman asked me to do a magnificent, near LIFE-SIZED portrait of his beautiful wife, in her wedding glory, which he planned to hang over the gorgeous fireplace in their grand new home... within a couple of years, they were divorced and it was gathering dust in her garage. Lesson? There were actually several. Women do not want a GIANT PICTURE OF THEMSELVES to look at every day... and if the marriage goes badly, a wedding dress only becomes a awful reminder. And nobody has room for such a monstrosity... no matter how much love was put into it. The wife did not want it, and especially after the divorce... even if significantly cut down. That was when I swore off any more portraits.

I had sworn off portraits after my gargantuan alley mural in Navasota, where I designed about seventy-five feet of ten foot musicians. 

Mance Lipscomb sings down Blues Alley in Navasota, 24 hours a day.

Then my preacher asked me to do just one more. A portrait of his favorite Confederate general. It took me a year to get up the gumption to just agree to to do it... and another year to figure out how to immortalize Stonewall Jackson, a man who was the second most famous behind Robert E. Lee for rebelling against the United States and defending the South's tradition of slavocracy.

"His Destiny and His Legacy"

Before he was a famous Confederate general, Jackson was

 a Military College administrator who taught Sunday School to the 

neighborhood slaves.  He considered it his most important project, even

 sending his wages as a Confederate general to support the mission back home.

 And here is the point, in so doing, I learned a ton. About Stonewall Jackson, about myself, and about how to paint a portrait. Up until that last portrait, I had never really applied my artistic vision. I had just painted, drudged my way through the assignment, like taking out the garbage. Sometimes, an inspiration would overtake me, to paint a portrait, but one which came out of my creative bank rather than a commission. In these I proved to myself that I could do them. They gave me the nerve to accept commissions... and thus eat more often.

My life-sized bronze sculpture of Marshal Frank Hamer in Navasota.

My "Stonewall moment" was after painting for a living for almost forty years. That last portrait taught me to do something I had always tried to practice, in every other subject I rendered. To first know it, then love it, then sing from my heart... whatever it was. I gave the preacher a serious surprise, a Stonewall he had only read about, a man he could admire and communicate with and understand... and yes, even love. So let me save you some time. If you are an artist, and you think you hate portraits...

My mother Margaret Cushman. Artist, antique dealer,

 and community organizer. The portrait I put off for three decades.
Special thanks to Rebecca Terry! 

After many years of avoiding the challenge, I recruited Rebecca Terry, an accomplished local portrait artist, to walk me through a decent portrait of my mother... who had been deceased 35 years. She was a great inspiration for me in many ways, and I dared not get into it, without knowing I could "paint my way out of it." Becky was a great help to me, and so finally I had the one portrait I thought I would never have... and cherish. It was worth it, for no other reason than it was theraputic to memorialize her, and to change my definition of myself... even though I had painted several major works before which were "portraits."

One was one of my first serious attempts to conquer the portrait. Here I took an old daguerreotype as the inspiration, and brought a young Victorian maiden to, life...

"Eliza Rae's First Dance"

Life-sized portrait of a Brazos bottom cotton picker... part of a series which wraps around the elevator at the Star of the Republic Museum. I had a face in my mind... and so I painted her from memory. She had to have a strong character, hard but not harsh, controlled in her life but in control of her immediate world... I drew her face from my subconscious, and afterwards realized I had painted our nanny we loved while growing up... The lady was dear Annabell! Strangely, doing something I found difficult and unpleasant became a labor of love... in the right conditions.

This raises a couple of questions. 

Should we ever turn down work, just because it seems undesirable to us? 

Might we be cheating ourselves out of a valuable experience?

Should we understand that our creative genius does best when it is under a 

little stress? 

I painted "The Bridesmaid" for a local wine label competition... it was not well received... but it was another attempt to get past the portrait boogaboo. 

"The Bridesmaid" 

Some of the most gratifying works I have done were... portraits. They were hard, and even grueling projects. But I am so glad I did them now.  I wish I could say it was maturity or wisdom that guided my decisions, but it was not. But it was a decision...

Years ago, I told God that I was terrible at running my life, and I was going to stop being so goal oriented, and just accept what he put in my path each day... I quit turning down things that i did not want to do. As you can see, God saw things in me that I never imagined. Faces. Personalities. Legacies. Touching lives and telling their stories for generations to come. As only portraits can do.