We recently connected with Robert Chew and have shared our conversation below.
Robert, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?
Looking back now, I wish I had started my life as an artist from the beginning. There is really nothing more rewarding. My life would have been much, much different, and likely poorer, but rich in other ways. Artists are in my family and was always in awe of them. I drew and took photographs, but I never really thought it a viable pursuit. My father was in the “Mad Men” days of advertising and publishing in the Midwest. It was Chicago, and later Cleveland, in the 1950’s and 1960’s and by the time I reached 18 in 1971, getting into college and then starting some kind of career was the goal. Not just any career, but one that could afford a house, maybe a family, and various recreational pursuits, like golf and boating. Unlike my father, I had no interest in sales. But writing seemed accessible, a journalist perhaps. There was some glamour and honor to that line of work, I thought at the time. Still do. I followed that track for 30 years, writing for advertising and trade magazines and then moving into public relations and advertising agency work. One thing led to another. I managed publications, agency offices, wrote books, wrote for Time.com, among other publications, taught and lectured at universities, and consulted on marketing and communications with large international companies. I moved around too, to Chicago, New York, Singapore, and finally Los Angeles.
Along the way, the visual arts side of my life was pushed further and further down, until one day, very late in the game, it came rushing back to the surface. Today, I call myself an artist.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was born in outside of Chicago, in Evanston, Ill. As mentioned, I started my career as a business writer working for Advertising Age in Chicago and a few years later in New York. I made my living at writing for over 40 years, and I still write books, articles, and help companies with effective communications. In the 1980’s in New York, I did touch the world of art when a good friend of mine, Michael Friedman, a well-known author of many Star Trek books now, and I created a cable TV show called, Collector’s World. We went around the city interviewing art dealers of one sort or another, charged them for the half-hour show, and then aired it on Wednesday nights. It was quite an education, and a lot of fun. But my real journey into in arts began much later. As a writer I had always been a student of art and the artist’s journey. When I switched to visual arts, my first inclination was mastering drawing, specifically the figure and portraits. Like many today, I was drawn to YouTube how-to videos, but quickly realized this was not enough. I was by this time living in Los Angeles and enrolled in the best fine art academy I could find, Kline Fine Art Academy. It was an excellent place to start. I fell in love with the entire community of artists I found there and the instructors were kind and expert at guiding novices like myself. I was shown the basics of light, shadow, composition and form. I was attracted immediately to oil on canvas painting. Anyone who knows oil painting knows the initial intimidation factor. What brushes to use? What mediums are best? A limited palette or store bought colors? What kind of canvas preparation? The fear factor was palpable, but the results were unbeatable. I have never looked back.
Portrait painting is great place to learn how to fail. Of course, one starts with family and friends, and animals. You try your hand at your mother or your nieces and nephews, and other willing victims. Before long you see the difficulty. It is no easy task making everyone happy. You quickly find you are no Rembrandt, and even if you try to paint like Rembrandt or say Lucien Freud, the results can easily become images few want to hang, even you like the result. Portrait painting is difficult work. I took online classes from the great Austin-based portrait painter Mark Carder, who has a series of videos that are terrific and based on the master works of John Singer Sargent. But he also focused on still life painting. Still life painting is where things changed. I found much more joy in creating images of flowers, silver goblets, or fruit. I found creating scenes on a table, lighting the objects, working with the dark backgrounds and intense highlights made painting much more enjoyable, and controllable.
There comes a natural progression in every artist’s journey when you need to tackle tougher compositions, or more enjoyable, natural scenes. For me, I gravitated naturally to landscapes. Landscape painting is a vast subject area and gave me plenty to work with. It is still my focus today. I work in the universe of impressionism, mostly in the realm of California impressionism, which has its own atmosphere and color palette. But I also find beauty in the post- impressionism of Gauguin’s South Pacific and Monet’s Giverny. I also work hard at contemporizing impressionism, feeding off Joan Mitchell’s extraordinary abstract work rooted deeply in Monet’s French countryside.
In this journey, artists become historians of art, too. For me, I worked my way through the landscape masters, from DaVinci’s smoky distant hills to Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire to Edward Hopper’s lonely Nighthawks to Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park series, and on to David Hockney’s Pear Blossom Highway. There are many stops along this journey. This is the joy of painting. Learning and experimenting and studying. It keeps life exciting and new, and I never tire of the learning. All of this is my inspiration and all of it makes me feel alive. There is always more to learn, always more scenes to paint.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
Having but a career in publishing, public relations, marketing and consulting was great and it paved the way for this encore career. When you find the “thing” that fits your personality, your interests, your curiosity, the question “Is this it?” never pops up.
I think a lot of people reach this point in life. It may come sooner than later, but for me it came very late. It hit me in my 60’s. There is nothing wrong with being a good provider, nurturing a family, paying bills, and watching the years pass happily. But for me, there was always a gnawing feeling that I had more inside me, that I was leaving something on the table, and the years were running out. This ‘more’ was undefined. Was it writing? I wrote for a living so this was not it. Perhaps it was a different kind of writing, like playwriting or novels. I tried my hand at this but was unsuccessful. Plus, writing is hard work. It’s a daily struggle with a pay-off years down the road, if there is any pay-off at all. I had agents and editors and attended workshops. It was a painful, thankless, against the current struggle. I was just not a natural writer in that way. Painting came naturally, I found. I felt like I was drifting down a river. It was easy, and faster.
But I must say the search is for a creative outlet is never easy. I found myself designing homes, fixing and flipping houses, and generally immersing myself in architecture, urban design, and neighborhood rejuvenation. I did this in Cleveland, Kansas City, Palm Desert, and Los Angeles. I was all in. It was great and all consuming. I loved the hands-on part of this work, and the vision of the finished living space. But in the end, people bought the houses, moved in, and I was left only with the before and after photos, and tired muscles. I was getting too old for this kind of work. I was not living my life, but creating a life for others to live in. I finally stopped completely after I renovated a beautiful old 100 year-old farmhouse in Los Angeles. It sold for $2.4 million, well over the asking price. I installed new bathrooms, kitchens, floors, and, well, everything. It was my masterpiece. The buyers were a young couple. They paid in cash, secured from their grandparents. It was their first home, and they were thrilled. I handed over the keys.
Within two months the house was bulldozed.
It broke me. Never again would I create or design a house for someone else. If I were to create something it would be on my terms, focused on what I wanted. I would be in control of the outcome. And so, I turned to something new, something that came from inside me, that I controlled completely, something that was not a long struggle, or broke my bones, or my bank accounts. And something where I could see the progress with relative speed. That was when I started drawing.
To be honest, it was all terrible at first. But with daily practice I go better. Anyone would. As I mentioned, I watched videos, took classes, and soon the result were shockingly better. Sometimes I couldn’t believe how the drawings actually came out. I had no talent, not really, but I was persistent. It was fun too. The struggle part was gone. The days seemed brighter and I no longer felt the gnawing of, “is this it?”
This new creative world composition, technique, art history, and community of artists young and old opened up a new world. Instantly, it all made sense to me. ‘This was it!’
I moved on to oil painting fast. It was intimidating at first, but now I can’t imagine doing anything else. I moved on from portraits and figurative work and shifted to the more impressionistic and abstracted landscapes (great fun). I got into the online world of selling art through SaatchiOnline, and art fairs. Then I found LA’s The Artists Gallery, an artist collective gallery, and was accepted. Now, I am president of The Artists Gallery helping some 70 artists develop their work, curate their shows, and help market to their audiences. This all happened in a time span of 5 years.
Yes, I still have to pay bills and earn money, and my art is helping with this, but the important dark-cloud question of, ‘Is this it?’ is no longer hovering. The questions now are, ‘How can I find more time to do this work?’ ‘How can I make a living at this?’ ‘How can I travel the world learning and discovering great art?’ And, most importantly, ‘How can I be authentic in my art, and to myself?’
No matter what stage of life you are in, reinventing yourself on regular basis is vital. This reinvention process can be dramatic, like a career change, or partner change, or geography change. But it also can be quiet, internal, and inspirational. For me it was quiet and internal. Art, specifically oil on canvas painting, continues to transform me in ways I would never have expected. It has opened up new doors for personal satisfaction, new friends, new travels, and new income streams.
Best of all, no one can bulldoze it. I am in complete control.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
There is that moment when time disappears. It is a time when you find you are so engaged in something three or four hours pass without notice. In that time, or ‘zone,’ you are deeply engaged with your mind and your hands. The dexterity of your mind and your fingers work seamlessly. No other creatures have this capability. It is when humans are at their best: inventing. We are born to create in this way. It separates us from all other life forms.
The moment, when time disappears, is what drives me, and makes everything else worthwhile.
Yet, this creative time is rare, and creativity in general is often beaten out of us or considered silly. It happens for a variety of reasons, but largely they are financial. Only the brave wander whole-heartily into creative careers. Yet, we are all gifted with some form of creativity, even if it doesn’t sell. The trick is to give it a chance, and to nurture it in whatever way you can. To my way of thinking, it’s the part of life that makes life worth living.
One easy trap to fall into when taking up the artistic journey is to think that you will make living at it, or maybe even become famous and make a fortune. There are examples that give you hope, but there are many thousands, or millions, of examples where this dream is a dark fantasy.
Most artists over the centuries and today were and are broke. Even the greats were broke. Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and on and on, were basically broke and in debt for most of their careers. They lived off friends and family and art dealers. It was not until very late in their lives that they turned the corner financially. The artists never saw the millions their art demands today. It was $100 francs here, $500 francs there, and many desperate letters to fathers or uncles to send money, even into their 40’s and 50’s.
The drive must come from within, and to not care about financial success. Success is creating something out of nothing from deep inside you. To write something that brings clarity to your life, or to pull something out the depths of your soul to make it appear on canvas, is something beautiful. That is what art is about. The first step to creative success is to announce to the world that, ‘I am an artist. I am a creative person.’
This is not easy. It’s easier to say, ‘I am an accountant,’ ‘I am a lawyer,’ or ‘I am a (fill in the blank).’ To say you are an artist brings either awe or laughter.
Of course, you will have to have some basis for saying this, such as you’ve written a short story, or a novel, or painted 20 paintings, or taken courses in design. These will be terrible examples, but it does not matter. This is who you are deep down. It is the first step in your journey. To declare you are an artist is bold, but it is a critical first step in being a successful artist, creative.
The second step is to train yourself in the techniques and styles that attract you. You need to study, practice, learn the history, learn how to market, and talk to other artists or creatives that you admire. You need to hone your skill levels to reach for something deeper inside. Once you have some mastery at this level, you are set up for the next level: selling.
This third level of success is the most vexing and unfair of all and is why you cannot make your art about money. It is about you. If it sells, great, if it doesn’t sell, even better. This is about you learning about yourself.
Yes, of course, you want to sell your art and make money, but to get into the sales big league of art you are entering into a world that is cruel, unfair, and hardworking, and often based on who you know. This is an entirely different artform.
There was a time long ago where art galleries found artists and marketed them, and when publishers received novels in the mail and called the writer to say they would ‘be pleased to publish’ them. Those days gone. No one is going to find your art and make you famous. Selling your art today is long-term, expensive process that takes years of ‘buying’ your way into the market, building a fan base, and networking the online and brick and mortar art industry. Even after all that, there are no guarantees of selling success. This does not make you less of an artist.
We all have this fantasy that we will take our art to a prestigious gallery, they will drool over it, promote it to their high-rolling collectors, and the checks will arrive. Or, that a museum curator will discover your art online and will begin showing your work in their galleries as one of the great emerging artists of today. Of course, there are those rare breakthrough artists that do ‘make it,’ are discovered, and become the next big thing. Be wary of these stories, there is often a backstory we do not know.
But real talent and hard work does have a way of succeeding in art, in music, in acting, in sports, in writing, and in all creative pursuits. So, where does that leave the millions who are not discovered? In an unhappy place, if the focus is based on money.
Do not base your art on sales. It’s about you and what makes you happy, even it’s crap. That is the first step and first lesson of success in the business of art. You must start with this step first to have any chance of getting to the long-shot third step of financial success. The best success is the success that comes from inside you. That is what drove all the great artists, who spent most of their lives dead broke but carried on happily anyway.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.robertzentgallery.com
- Instagram: @robertzentchew
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-zent-chew-2687a07/
Image Credits
Credit: R.Z. Chew