Robert Long
This is a tribute to my watercolour mentor, Robert Long, who passed away Monday, March 31, 2008. Robert was an accomplished watercolour painter, teacher and demonstrator, who had a profound effect on my retirement years.
He was my mentor is every sense of the word, and I met him by sheer luck in the winter of 1989 when we wintered in Florida (Ah - happy days!). I saw a tiny ad in the local Destin paper offering private lessons from his nearby condo. He charged US $10 for three hours and provided both paper and watercolours. Quite a bargain. We rarely had more than four to six of us in those days, and we were really his winter friends, as he spent the rest of year travelling around the U.S. and western Canada, demonstrating and selling his limited edition prints. He taught only technique, and we hit it off right away.
I went for two winters, sometimes three times a week for intensive training. In 1990 he brought "his lady" (Sharon) to meet us and they were married later that year. They made a great team, and have been wintering in Florida, and traveling around as a team ever since. That's 19 years ago now. We never met after we sold our Florida condo in 1994, but we stayed in touch over the years and he shared in my joy when I won an award of some kind. He was only 78, and started life as a Pharmacist in his father's drug store. He inherited it and worked there for 14 years, but sold out and became an artist. He met Sharon in 1989, on one of his road trips. He followed his dream, bless him.
The advent of the Internet and digital cameras meant we could exchange letters and pictures, and as we both had websites we were able to show each other what we were doing. His death hit me harder than I thought, and my son David gave me wise counsel. He said, and I quote: "It is obvious to me that Robert is already living on in you, and after you're gone, I will still know who he was, and how he influenced my father. There has to be some comfort to know that the influence we have will continue long after we're gone."
I'm also sure Robert will be looking down on all of his students and tut-tutting if we become impatient, perhaps even leaning down to take our brush for a moment. He will also be looking down to approve of a job well done. The world was a better place for Robert Long being in it. I will miss him.
A tribute to John Plumb
After the sad news of the recent death of my mentor, Robert Long, I'm faced with the task of posting another tribute to a well-known British abstract artist and dear friend of over 60 years, John Plumb. John was a friend and fellow art-school student since about 1941. His death on Sunday, April 6, 2008, was expected, but ends another precious link with my past.
Few of you will know about John Plumb, http://www.johnplumb.uk.com/ but at the tender age of 15, we both enrolled in the Luton School of Arts (now Barnfield College) on the same day. It was right in the middle of the Second World War. Our history is long and varied, but we became friends immediately. His father employed me in his newspaper delivery business and a cafe he owned during my art school years. We both were accepted by Vauxhall Motors (later General Motors) in a trainee program to be post-war auto stylists. We both left for different reasons and we lost touch for a number of years. I went on to an eventual career in commercial art in Canada, and John taught art and became a very successful abstract artist in the 1960s and beyond.
We linked up again in the 1980s and have been in regular contact ever since. My wife and I visited his beautiful studio in North Devon, but by 1994 John was almost totally blind from Macular Degeneration - a cruel irony for an active artist. I've often wondered why John never received a British knighthood, or some similar public recognition, but his obituary in The London Times insisted it was only a matter of time before John's recognition became a fact. A little late perhaps, but I'm sure my old friend would have had a wry comment on this. It's given to few of us to have friends who go back over 60 years, and when I wrote and published my own life history for our family, John's memories meshed with mine and we both re-lived the past with pleasure. I shall miss him too.John Fisher