Support early in the career of an artist can make a profound impact that extends and magnifies over time. Young artists and writers often start out pursuing their craft with headwinds and no clear source of income. Working space and patronage are not easy to come by for the young and unproven. But sometimes, those who see potential do what they can to give the fledgling a career boost. Such support inspires confidence and may inspire a willingness to take paths and do work that might otherwise seem too risky and without clear reward.

Many artists are/were supported at crucial moments by patrons, including family. Claude Monet’s brother Leon, it turns out, supported his younger brother in many ways, including bidding up Claude’s paintings at auction. Vincent Van Gogh (my first artist hero) was faithfully supported by his brother, Theo, during that incredible span of only ten years when Vincent made his great work.

During my art student years at Swain School of Design, I gave a few figure drawings to my brother, Jeff. They were the work of a beginner. While I was still at Swain, I attended the Yale University summer program in Norfolk, CT.

I came home with some good paintings, one of which is a glowing forest landscape with massive rocks that Jeff bought, and has displayed in his home these 45 years since. It remains one of the most important purchases I have had: timely, encouraging, and early.

As I moved around and travelled, more pieces were added to his collection. I gave a book of 30 drawings as a gift for his 30th birthday, he picked up a New Mexico landscape,

His collection includes landscape paintings from France, such as this one of a farm called the Bastide Basse, near Bonnieux,
this canvas done in 2000 in the wine region of Côtes du Rhône Villages, near Cairanne,
and this sweet little ink drawing in the countryside south of Vaison la Romaine.

I remember bringing home a large narrative scene of the village of Lacoste in France, when I returned from a teaching assistantship. That year was the bicentennial of Bastille Day, and villages and cities everywhere were celebrating. Lacoste had a reenactment of the rebellion with a mock guillotine and its victims, and all the while smoke was in the sky from a forest fire was burning in the valley below. After I returned to Rhode Island, I was still working on the painting, but Jeff kept track of my progress. When it was completed he negotiated to buy it cooperatively with my parents. I arranged and helped build a fabulous gilded frame for it, which made the piece cost a good deal more. They paid the price; Jeff knows a good buy when he sees one. Now that Mom and Dad are gone, he is sole owner.

Le 14 Juillet, Lacoste

I recently visited and saw the collection all together. Seeing the work for the first time in years, some of the paintings looked to me as if another person entirely painted them, and that’s somewhat true. I can barely conjure what was going on in my head so long ago.

I do know this: the support from Jeff and patrons like him who purchased my work had a magnified effect that extended long past the time it took for the money to run out. I had to make myself worthy, and work to retain that trust. Because Jeff gave me a vote of confidence, I felt I had to affirm that confidence, at least to myself.

Landscape near Pine Plains, New York. c.1999

The compulsion to feel worthy, even after someone has said so with their checkbook, seems to me to be at the heart of being an artist. I am never quite sure that it’s enough, so I keep at it. So when someone we trust gives a vote of confidence in our art, it fills up the tank of self worth, and pours on a little more momentum so we can take the next leap.

note: These pieces look really great in Jeff and Jeanette’s home. They have an amazing collection of art from Africa, and it all looks fascinating and amazing together.