As Richard Baker looks back, the canvas still beckons
Baker speaks with a curious visitor about his work.
Kyle Perrotti photo
Richard Baker is in an interesting place, looking back at a prolific body of work while also staring down an uncertain future.
Baker, who is sitting on the doorstep of 70, had his work featured at a retrospective last weekend at the Folkmoot Center in Waynesville. The event was well attended, largely by people familiar with the artist and his paintings, people who admire his unique style.
In light of the retrospective, it’s easy to think that Baker has achieved everything he wanted in his craft, found his distinct style and honed it to the point that it appeals to laypeople and those with an eye for finer art. However, in the wake of a recent cancer diagnosis, as he ponders his body of work. He feels that while others have created masterpieces, he may never paint something that fully reflects his artistic vision.
“I don’t think I need to paint faster,” Baker said. “I think I need to paint better.”
The making of an artist
As a military brat, Baker experienced plenty of places when he was young. Although his mother let him get his hands on paint at three years old — an introduction to the medium — his first experience considering something so beautiful it bears sharing with others was when he was a young child living in Munich, Germany. The house had a window where Baker could see the Alps. Taken aback by the mystery of the rugged mountains, his mind worked to produce a picture in which his imagination sharpened features dulled by distance.
Not long after that reckoning, Baker’s parents took him to an art museum, and he marveled at the fact that the works people had painted generations earlier were “just out in the world” for all to enjoy. It clicked. He could create art that people connect with. Over the next six decades, Baker would plumb the depths of his own imagination as he searched for scenes worth painting and techniques worth learning in a lifelong quest to render reality as he saw it.
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“I know a lot of writer friends that keep a journal,” he said. “I had a sketchbook, and I’d just draw stuff.”
When Baker was in high school living in Kansas, his father got out of the Army and bought a recording studio, where Baker worked, sometimes behind the mixing board, helping lay to wax an array of different sounds. However, when he was just 18 years old, his father died, and the business was sold. Baker headed off to the University of Kansas in hopes of attending its art school. After a snag in that process, he moved to Tampa, Florida. While he hoped to attend art school at the University of South Florida, his plans again changed.
Before he even turned 20, Baker took a job at Busch Gardens, a quirky gig initially intended to make ends meet that blossomed into a career of 32 years as the curator of mammals. Over that time, he came to love some of the animals, although not always the job. Baker found that between the zoo and helping to raise his three children, he didn’t have time to paint. As the years went by and he aged into his 50s, it became clear to Baker that it was time to reassess his priorities.
A necessary change
The Hudson River School Art Movement is known for producing painters who created hyper-realistic depictions of natural landscapes, largely around the Catskills and Adirondacks of Upstate New York. The movement was founded in the early 19th century, grew over several decades and saw varying levels of interest through the mid 20th century before fading from mainstream popularity around the 1960s, just around the time Baker squeezed his first tube of paint.
Considering the inspiration Baker drew from the Hudson River School, Western North Carolina with all its rolling rivers and sweeping vistas seemed like the perfect fit. He recalled a pitstop at Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga during a family trip.
“I bought me a Daniel Boone coonskin hat and a pop gun, and I was the coolest guy ever,” Baker said. “And then when we were on the top of the mountain, I could see forever, and I never got that impression out of my mind. I told myself, ‘This is where I need to be. This is home.’”
Baker has seen and painted bigger, more rugged mountains, but those don’t interest him as much as what he’s found across the Blue Ridge Mountains. They are more romantic, he said, and more soothing.
In his early 50s, Baker moved to Hendersonville, where he took a job in a factory and quickly moved up to a supervisory role. But in 2009, at age 55, Baker suffered a major heart attack. Baker’s great grandfather and grandfather died in their 30s, and his father had died at 42. Even as a young man, Baker didn’t expect to live much past 50. When he had his heart attack at 55, the doctor told him he may have just a couple of years left. Not sure how much longer he’d live but certain he didn’t want to draw his last breath on a factory floor, he took the $15,000 he had saved, moved to Tryon and opened a small art studio. He blew through the money in about three months and had to sleep in his studio, taking bird baths in its sink. He was a starving artist, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. He was painting.
“I was so damn happy,” he said.
Things would get even better.
Around 2012, he met Gina Malone, a writer originally from Spartanburg, South Carolina, who’d owned a bookstore in Tryon for almost two decades before Baker’s studio opened nearby. The first time she saw Baker, he was playing his guitar on the street, and she later looked out her shop window to see him painting a picture of her bookstore. In an artsy city with no shortage of eccentric personalities, Baker was another “character,” Malone thought, but once she spoke with him, the connection was immediate.
Malone said she was impressed that as artistic and outgoing as Baker was, he also had an equally distinct “practical side,” perhaps a remnant from his working years in Florida. She admired how driven he was, and as a self-taught artist, how he always wanted to push himself to become just a little bit better.
“He was down to Earth,” she said, “very ‘let’s get down to it and figure this out.’ He’s not the typical artist.”
In 2013, Baker and Malone moved to Saluda for a of couple of years, then went to Asheville, where Malone took a job with the Laurel of Asheville Magazine, where she is now the editor. Baker opened a gallery in the River Arts District, excited about the prospect of selling art in a larger, yet more saturated market. If he could make it in Asheville, he could make it anywhere, he told himself.
He sold a painting the day he opened the gallery and then didn’t sell another one for six months.
Ten years ago, the couple moved to the Jonathan Creek area of Haywood County and loved the quiet calm. The area is perfect for Baker, who, inspired by the Hudson River School Art Movement, most enjoys painting en plein air, which basically means out in the open. Baker can drive less than an hour, set up an easel at a Blue Ridge Parkway overlook and capture whatever is in front of him, the unique characteristics of light, weather and season making each spot different from day to day.
Baker enjoys the company of some friends during the retrospective. Kyle Perrotti photo
Baker recalled that he once had a friend who just painted red apples — apples in a basket, apples on a table, apples in a tree — just apples. Baker used to wonder how his friend could paint the same thing over and over.
“But now that’s what I’m doing,” he said. “I’m painting this landscape, painting these mountains, because that’s my passion.”
The abruptness of life
Early this year, doctors found a tumor the size of an orange in one of Baker’s lungs. It was fast-spreading, large-cell cancer, and the lung was three-quarters collapsed with fluid in it. The prognosis was uncertain but not promising. Baker underwent radiation and chemotherapy. The initial treatments were harsh enough that he couldn’t physically put paint on canvas.
“That’s when I was worried,” Malone said. “I had never seen him not painting.”
Two months ago, Baker couldn’t even walk more than a few feet at a time. Things felt bad enough that Baker considered how to get his affairs in order and put his daughter in charge of his inventory of over 220 paintings. More recently, Baker has been doing immunotherapy and has felt well enough to come to his studio at Folkmoot and paint.
“I feel lucky I’m still able to do it,” he said. “My eyesight is still great, my manual dexterity, my movement is good. I don’t have arthritis. I see photos of Renoir taping a brush to his hand.”
Once Baker felt well enough to enjoy company, Malone reached out to Alicia Blanton with Folkmoot, and the two set to work planning the event. Twigs & Leaves Gallery, where Baker’s work is sold, joined the effort, and before long, the idea for a show, a retrospective honoring his body of work, came into focus.
The retrospective was held last Friday and Saturday and brought in Baker’s loved ones, admirers of his work and even a few strangers.
Capping off Saturday was a well-attended reception, which offered a chance for folks to enjoy Baker’s work while sipping on wine or mocktails from Roll Up Herbal Bar. Two large TV screens looped videos shot by Baker’s friend and fellow artist, Rylan Love, showed Baker at some of his favorite spots along the Blue Ridge Parkway explaining what they mean to him. Upbeat music from Jazz on the Level featuring the improvisational style of guest violinist Glenn Basham set the right tone throughout the reception.
The highlight of the afternoon was when Ken Czarnomski, a retired architect and working artist known around Western North Carolina for his colorful watercolor maps of some the region’s most beloved areas, roasted Baker. Czarnomski recapped his good friend’s life, touching on much of the same chronology as this story, adding in a slew of jokes that kept the audience engaged and even elicited a few belly laughs.
With the affect of a PG-13 Rodney Dangerfield, Czarnomski told jokes with a booming voice and bouncy energy as he moved through the accompanying slide show. Photos showed Baker in his younger years, usually sporting his trademark goatee, even if it had to be drawn on.
Czarnomski ended with a heartfelt toast.
“I’d like to thank you, Gina, for sharing Richard with us this evening, and I want to give you a special thank you, because you made Richard believe he’s a normal person,” Czarnomski joked. “Richard, you are a very colorful character, and you have contributed so much to the arts around here, and that’s why we just wanted to tell you how inspirational you are.”
“I didn’t expect any laughs, because you don’t know how people will take flat jokes sometimes, but they did so I was thrilled,” Czarnomski told The Smoky Mountain News a couple of days after the reception. “But the thing that thrilled me the most was that Richard was laughing all the way through it, and at the end when I looked up, he was crying. That’s who I did this for.”
Baker said he didn’t expect the retrospective to draw so many people and create so much positive energy.
“I’ve never had anything like that in my life,” he said. “I’m overwhelmed.”
Creating community
Most creative types who’ve had a few conversations with Baker have been told by him at some point that they need to pursue their passions with fervor.
“Who’s standing in your way?” he’ll ask rhetorically.
Baker’s gruff voice and sly grin belie a kind nature. During normal working hours Monday through Saturday, people can likely catch him in his studio listening to rock and folk music from the ‘60s and ‘70s and figuring out how to bring nature to life one brush stroke at a time. As others with studios at Folkmoot know, he’s happy to invite anyone in for a conversation. While many artists struggle to work with others around and many prefer utter silence, Baker enjoys the company.
One of the most notable features of Baker’s work is how realistically he depicts water with perfect clarity whether it’s still or moving. For anyone willing to ask, Baker is more than happy to explain just how he does that in a way that makes the listener feel like they can do the same.
“There are no secrets in this,” Baker said.
When he was a starving artist in Tryon, Baker was paid a lot of kindness by a good number of people, including other artists. Through those connections built on a foundation of generosity, a community formed.
Tryon has a competitive art scene with a lot of talented creators and some serious patrons with money to spend. Baker wanted to cool tensions between artists for the benefit of all. He puts it this way: if someone is selling watermelon on the side of the road, it’s not that interesting; if he’s joined by someone else selling cherries, it’s kind of interesting; if they’re joined by another person selling strawberries, something is happening that is worth stopping for. The attention that benefits one can benefit all.
“I had the idea to invite all these artists that I knew that hated each other over for a cup of coffee,” Baker said. “I invited six or seven artists over at the same time. They didn’t know that I invited the other artists, and then they all came, and it was great.”
He began hosting monthly artists breakfasts and throws a large yearly bash for Groundhog Day, traditions that continue still.
“I didn’t get here by myself, so I owe others,” he said. “I can do that by having other artists and like-minded people get together.”
The nature of success
When Baker was in high school, he made his first few bucks selling a painting to his uncle. Since then, he’s sold countless pieces to patrons across the United States. The thrill of selling art, the joy that comes with knowing someone appreciates your work, is unmatched. That someone else can understand what he was trying to do, that they get it and appreciate it is “stunning and humbling, very humbling,” Baker said.
“A gentleman bought a painting he liked, came back and found a companion piece. He bought them, and he hung them in a prominent place in his home,” Baker said. “I was just overwhelmed by that.”
Baker keeps a stack of “in-progress” paintings next to his easel, and from time to time, someone wants to buy one of them. Those works, unfinished in the mind of the artist, were just right to the buyer who connected with them.
“I’m going, ‘There’s something wrong them,’” Baker said. “But people can still relate to them.”
It can be hard for an artist to judge their own work. The first stroke on any canvass is a mistake, Baker said, something that will need more brush strokes to begin to build a composition. There is always room to improve a painting, always something that can be changed to better reflect what’s in his mind. He knows that he will never achieve that aim entirely and that perfection is impossible. It’s in the pursuit of perfection that an artist can find meaning.
“I have not painted a masterpiece,” Baker said. “I may never paint a masterpiece, but I’m going to try.”
But perhaps perfection of a craft, even a lifelong pursuit of art itself, isn’t the right measure of success.
Early on day two of the retrospective, Jewell Payne stepped into Baker’s studio sporting a nervous smile. Payne had driven up from Marietta, South Carolina, about two hours south of Waynesville. The first time Payne met Baker was when he had his spot in Saluda. It was Christmastime and some places were closed, but he was inside working. After some conversation and time with Baker’s work, he inspired her to work on honing her own craft.
The two became fast friends and have stayed in touch ever since.
On many occasions over the last several years, Payne has made the drive to Baker’s gallery after getting off work in the afternoon to paint and learn. Even when he opened his first Haywood County gallery in downtown Waynesville, farther from Marietta than Saluda, she was happy to make the journey.
Not long ago, Payne called Baker saying she wanted to bring a friend up to meet him and paint, and he told her about his cancer diagnosis and the retrospective. She drove up and spent a good deal of time speaking with Baker and studying each painting on display. Payne said she wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
“He’s my best friend,” she said. “We’ve shared a lot of years, and he’s just the sweetest, gentlest and smartest man you’ll ever want to meet.”
Last Friday morning as the retrospective opened, Baker was absent. He was at the oncologist receiving promising news: the tumor in his lung appears to have shrunken and may be effectively “dead.” The result created mixed feelings. Baker was glad to hear that he will have more time, but it was another hairpin turn along on an unpredictable road that still inevitably reaches its destination.
“I expected to be in hospice in six months,” Baker said. “I’m trying to process it. Eventually, we’re all gonna go. We don’t get out of this alive, but maybe I have a bit more time than they thought I had.”
More time to paint. More time to pursue perfection.
