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Many of you watched me paint this 5 foot canvas over several weeks in the studio while you were also painting on your projects. Tonight was the opening reception of the show in which the piece is displayed, which I sadly wasn't able to attend, I was really looking forward to it. So, I thought I'd tell you the story of this painting and how it came to be entitled "Undersold"

I am lucky and grateful to have studied under some incredibly gifted Art professors during my time at UNG. I've got lots to say about that, but I was invited to display a piece for the retrospective show , Bob Owens: A Legacy Beyond Measure, as one of his former students. He was in his last semesters of teaching when I was a freshman. At the time, I didn't know he was well respected and famous in many circles. I was just a dumb kid with a chip on my shoulder, working my way through college and trying to figure it all out.

I had gotten put into one of his painting classes with some wildly talented sophomores and juniors. I didn't belong in there, but I stayed anyway, because I wasn't wasting a penny of the money I paid for it. We did a lot of still lifes, a lot... of still lifes. Piles of miscellaneous beige and brown things set up in the middle of the painting studio that were encircled with easels and canvases. Every single day we'd paint bones and rocks and bottles and a hornet nest that seemed to show up in every one of those stupid things. Always monochrome, always boring, always something I didn't want to do. We also did landscapes. Beige ones that didn't even have a barn in them. I did every assignment without comment, to him anyway. Yes, I learned a tremendous amount with those dirt colored paintings, not that I would have admitted it at the time.
The semester finally came to a close, and our final project was assigned. This was the project in every Art class that you did to show what you've learned over the weeks. A still life was set up in the studio, but we were allowed to set up one at home provided that we met all of the requirements. I set up a still life consisting of colorful potatoes, a vase with wilted flowers, and a snake. I called it "Snake and Potatoes"

If you've never been to Art school, you may not know that part of your education involves heavy criticism. It's never pretty. It often makes you cry and seriously consider giving up. There's a lot of drama that comes with it, but it's necessary to build a thick skin, get used to rejection, and learn how too defend your ideas. There's a lot of that in the real world. The time came for the class critique of these paintings. As you can imagine, mine stood out from everyone else's. Color, humor, dramatic lighting, and an element in that still life that technically wasn't still. I loved it. My critique was last. I got called out by Professor Owens for being irreverent of his final. I had to defend, for the first time, my decisions.

I left angry for being called out. I stewed over it for a week. I couldn't let it go. Until about ten days later, I sold it for $250. I marched myself, self-rightously, back into his office for a real Gotcha Moment. He didn't look up when I darkened his door. He was doing paperwork, and without so much as a how do you do, he said, "May I help you"?

I told him I had sold that painting that he hated for $250. I let that land. After a moment, he said, "it was worth more than that." Stunned, I said "huh?"
He looked up, "you undersold yourself" and looked back to his paperwork.
But, I explained, you gave me such a hard time about it, you were so critical, you hated it.
Calmly and carefully he said, "I never said I hated it. I asked you to explain your decisions."
"Then why did you call me out but none of those other people?"
He looked up, " because you're different, aren't you? You've got enough moxie to actually make this happen [be a professional artist]. You undersold yourself."
He went back to his paperwork.

I stormed out of his office. I was angry because I didn't know what the word moxie meant. I looked it up later and thought, oh.

I never saw him again. He retired and was gone. That painting class was forgotten about and I moved on and learned other things from other professors.

In the terrible years that followed graduation, as I tried and failed, as I struggled to become a professional artist, to find my niche, and my way in the world, as I built my business and considered going back to bartending, as I reinvented over and over, setback after success, as I built program after project and watched it be taken over by richer people and bigger entities, rebranded, and sold as their own, I would come back to that moment.

"But you're different, aren't you? You've got enough moxie to actually make this happen"

And I would get back up.

Even today, as I struggle to bridge the gap between what I have now and the next big step for Celestial Studios, I think about it. When it's the middle of the night, and the walls are closing in, I think about it, thirty years later.

The frog in this painting is me. The snake is the seemingly insurmountable people and problems that have taken away from me all these years. The snake is observing, not sure if it wants to strike. It is obviously larger and more powerful than the frog, but the frog stands steadfast in the line of fire. She knows that her bright colors tell the snake she has her own power.

I hope Professor Owens looks down at the painting I did for his retrospective show and smiles. I pass on this story and the foundations that he laid for me on to my students.

The moral of the story is, I guess, that words matter. You never know how you may save someone even after you're gone. So give the encouragement, say the compliment, teach the lesson. It's a hard life, we've got to help each other get through it.

Thanks for reading. ❤️🦊

Bob Owens: A Legacy Beyond Measure is on display now at the University of North Georgia Library Technology Center, Dahlonega Campus ... See MoreSee Less

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