Ever since I was a young boy, I liked to sketch and draw. In fact, I still have my “Learn To Draw” instruction book, featuring Jon Gnagy “America’s television art instructor.” (See above. Those were the pre-Bob Ross days.) Many of my school notebooks contain examples of my “art” amid my class notes. I was given the opportunity to live and study in France following high school, and I visited the museums in Paris numerous times, trying my best to absorb the beauty and drama of the artwork on display. I was especially drawn to the Impressionists and Post Impressionists, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, van Gogh, etc. I owe much of my “style” to these giants of the art world. For the first time, I began to explore my own “muse” in media beyond sketching in pencil. I still have some of my works dated 1969 in various mediums tucked into my portfolio.
Over the years that followed, I would occasionally try to re-capture that creative flow, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. My portfolio does contain works from the 1970’s as well. However, the demands of family and profession conspired to shuffle artistic expression to the rear of my list of life’s priorities. After retiring in 2018, I suddenly found myself with the time to do art but lacked a sufficient push to regain the inspiration to try again. That is until I received a flyer about art classes being taught at the nearby Glen Allen Cultural Arts Center. The nudge was there at the right time on this occasion, and I eagerly enrolled for a painting class. That class exposed me to acrylic paints for the first time. That class was followed by a pastels class, the two media in which I primarily work. The coronna pandemic interrupted my formal art lessons, but certainly created sufficient time for me to engage in my ongoing artistic expression.
My works tend to cluster around the images which surrounded me over my lifetime and brought me the most joy: the Beach, the mountains, woodlands, meadows, and valleys of Piedmont Virginia and beyond, animals whose beauty and actions are boundless, and things in life that I find interest me if no one else. I hope that you find pleasure in my works as well. If so, then it has all been worthwhile.
Tom Oxenham