Sssssshhhhh…
Can you hear that plopping sound? That’s the apple falling not too far from the tree.
Which brings us to our current artist of note Nicholas Coleman.
I know you are standing there with your index finger on your face and your eyes looking upward thinking – “Coleman? Coleman?! Artist?” where have I heard that name?
“Michael Coleman, right?”
Wrong.
Michael is his Dad, Nicholas is his son. I can’t tell you the countless times I have thought about these two as I have gazed upon their masterpieces in the gallery.
It boggles my mind to think of how it must have been for Nicholas to grow up in the shadow of his Father. Can you imagine?
The pressure…
Sitting at the morning breakfast table as a toddler with feet swinging back and forth, staring at this man who was your father crunch away on his cereal, he must have just looked up to his sweet Mother and said-
“Uuhhmmm I’ll have what he’s having”
Or watching Michael drag his canvas and paints out into the vast wilderness to paint his magnificent paintings of the roaming wildlife; and there standing small … Nicholas in weeds 3 feet over his head… hiding…but watching.
He certainly couldn’t plopped himself down at the dinner table and tell everyone listening that he has decided to join Cirque du Soleil as an acrobatic tumbler and was moving to Vegas effective immediately.
He did what any son of a well known Father would do, he took up the ‘craft’ and took it up he did. And, off to Bingham Young University he went. Although he says that all the artist that influenced him are “Dead guys who painted western art and landscapes”
There is however, one artist not dead, very much alive that did influence him if you remember the analogy of the apple not falling too far from the apple tree.
His Father.
And, I am sure that after his education he returned to Utah and walked into his Father’s studio and slapped a current magnificent painting of his onto his Father’s easel and asked,
“How do you like those apples!”
Although I have seen a wide variations in what he paints it seems that it’s the Native American Indians that he seems to connect with. When clients come into the gallery I think they would agree with this also.
So as I sit here pondering my thoughts and munching on my apples…I think “Is it genetics?” “Is that really what brings another generation of artist into the world” or can you be taught?
My thought?
Plop… another apple just fell-
Not too far from the tree.
Hoping you are all happy campers,
Mia Valley