2009 Epilogue: Discovering New Talents
at the Tender Age of 73

by Acree Carlisle

In my previous “artist’s statement,” I described my 2006-07 transition from semi-retired architect to emerging pen and ink wildlife artist. I explained that, after a 35 year absence from art, I now focused on drawing animals to reawaken my artistic eye and my physical skills. I even finished my statement with the hope that maybe, just maybe, I would someday start painting again. Now, in 2009, it’s time to update my “artist’s statement”—and for wonderful reasons I had not expected at the time.

First, I severed almost all of my ties with architecture in late December 2007 when I notified my architectural clients that I would no longer provide consulting services. In November of 2008, I notified the State of Texas Board for Architectural Registrations that I wanted to change my status to Architect Emeritus. This means I can still say that I am an architect; however, I cannot provide any architectural services (!). This was not an easy step, as it ended a very long and rewarding chapter of my life.

Having freed up my day and my mind’s preoccupations, I continued developing my skills to do pen and ink drawings throughout the first half of 2008. By that summer, after doing only drawings for two years, the time had come to see if I could do watercolor paintings again. On July 3rd, I took a first step and did my first watercolor painting, a Colorado ranch scene. It appeared to me that it was not too bad. So with that little success, I started painting again, and with a passion.

Two really big things happened to me in the last half of 2008 that will change the course of the rest of my life.

The first thing was that I was notified by the Art Colony Association, the sponsor of the Bayou City Art Festival Downtown Houston, that I would have a booth in the huge art festival that is now probably the largest art festival in the U.S. Furthermore, they asked if my story and artwork could be used to promote the art festival. This was a huge vote of confidence for me.

The Houston Chronicle published a good story about me and put a number of my drawings and paintings on their website. ABC television also taped a two-and-a-half- minute segment on me in my studio, and it was aired on Channel 13 a number of times. For a brief time, I was a local celebrity (certainly a new experience for me). At the art festival, many, many people that I didn’t know stopped by to say that they had seen me on TV or had read about me in the newspaper. One very pretty young lady wanted to have her photo taken with me. Of course, I couldn’t decline. The newspaper article and the TV interview can be seen on this website in the section “In the News.”

The second big thing that happened to me in the last half of the year 2008 was that I discovered, quite by accident, that I appear to have the ability to write interesting stories. After I started doing watercolors again last July, a number of people requested that I email them an image of my latest painting so they could share in my progress. More and more people asked to be added to the list and it got too big to use a regular email program.

So we (me and my technical advisor, my grandson, Edmund) purchased the services of a company to provide mass email service. This company has very strict requirements to prevent spam (which I’m glad about). One of those requirements is that at least two paragraphs of text must accompany each email mail-out.

So I started adding various thoughts to accompany each new painting, again mainly to meet the requirements of the email service. I sent out my art email about once a week (with a slight interruption in September of 2008 because of a little storm named Ike) and I started getting a lot of feedback from my audience. However, the feedback more often than not responded to my writing rather than the painting, or at least the feedback focused on how the writing greatly enhanced the experience of the painting.

So I started paying more attention to the required paragraphs and started making them stories. Now the email responses are more about the stories than about the paintings. We have come to the conclusion that the sum of the two, the painting along with its story, is greater together than the sum for each individually.

Now I spend about as much time writing stories as I do painting. I’ve renamed the email list “Art and Tales by Acree” to reflect the change. In fact, I now think about their composition together, each influencing the development of the other. I’ve often said, for many years, that the best paintings tell a story. Little did I know how important and true that little saying of mine would someday be—to me.

For 2009, I plan to continue painting and writing as I have never in my life done before and never dreamed I would be doing. I have several art shows planned for the spring, as well as a talk and presentation about my return to art at the Flower Mound Public Library in May (another new experience for me!). I also plan to travel, photograph landscapes (I’ll be in Big Bend National Park in March), and consider publishing my stories and paintings.

It should be a wild and fun ride. You’re welcome to join me.

Cheers,

   Acree
   February, 2009

P. S. Click on this link to return to the artist's statement.