The Artist Monk

original artwork

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I Don't Want To Be a Hobo Anymore

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Handy Models

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An Old Album Cover

While sorting out my old and eclectic album collection I decided to keep an obscure Bluegrass album strictly for its cover. A banjo player in a cowboy hat and boots sitting on a bale of hay, picking a banjo. I did a quick sketch of it in ink and it didn’t give the appearance of the guy on the cover but it was likable enough for me to paint over it in watercolor. I am thinking I will make another…

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On Meeting Kristofferson and Cash. Excerpt from ROAM ANTICS

I met Kris Kristofferson along with Johnny Cash when I was an extra in their 1984 film The Last Days of Jesse James. I responded to an article in the Tennessean requesting extras for the film for a scene in Edwin Warner Park. It said to dress like cowboys with little color. I showed up wearing my faded green Joe Cartwright shirt and cowboy hat with my dog Roscoe. I was told to join the crowd…

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Flower Child. Excerpt from ROAM ANTICS

I was in my early 20s when I started working as a carpenter’s helper for various contractors around Nashville. The standard pay for a helper was paid $5/hr. But they liked my energy and work ethic and I usually got $6/hr. I got a job working with a framing crew and we worked alongside a crew of masons from East Tennessee. Their foreman was a boisterous good ol’ boy with curly red hair named Buck.…

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Broke Down, Head Up.

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Bob Dylan Live

I finally got a chance to see Dylan up close with the opportunity to photograph him. He usually doesn’t allow cameras when he is performing. but this time he did. Unfortunately, a woman took a seat directly in front of me and stood for almost the whole show. I did manage to get a pocket size sketch of him at one point and a few pics. When Dylan finished his set she left. It wasn’t even her seat.

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Sketchbook as a Diary.

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Yard Sale Find.

I found some VHS tapes that I made at a yard sale down the road from me. Back in the 1900s, I got a grant to create a series of art instruction videos that I distributed to all the libraries in Orleans and Niagara Counties. When they upgraded to digital, none of the libraries digitized them before discarding them, and one set ended up at a yard sale. It was missing volume #5, which has the…

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Ramblings of a Rambler

I’ve received many suggestions over the years to write a book about my travels. This has led me to many questions such as where do I begin the story, which is really a combination of many stories. I have put down many of these stories in words and many are still in my head. I don’t see myself as a great writer but I can tell a great story. Telling the stories in writing is not the same as telling…

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Loss of My Sifu

Loss of My Sifu

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High School Memory

I got caught skipping school by the new principal. The punishment for skipping school and missing classes was office detention where you still missed classes but under the watchful eye of the principal. I brought art supplies and started drawing in colored pencil. I took Bob Dylan’s literally when he sang “…your orphan with his gun is crying like a fire in the sun.” All the teachers that came in…

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Frisbee...it's not just a weapon.

Frisbee…it’s not just a weapon.

I grew up watching the Vietnam War on the 6:00 news. It was horrific. As I grew closer to draft age I had to decide how I would respond to being drafted to fight in a war I knew nothing about and wanted nothing to do with. I could go to Canada easy enough. The border was only 35 miles away. But I ruled that out as an option and decided that I would accept my fate and take my chances in war. If I…

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Broke Down Time

“Always carry your sketchbook with you like you do your driver’s license.” My great teacher Juanita Greene Parks used to say. I had mine with me when I was broke down on a country road waiting for help. I did 3 sketches leaning on my truck. This was years ago. But I painted over one recently. http://www.arthurbarnes.com

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All Things With No Teacher

All Things With No Teacher

I just finished reading a 970 page historical novel. I generally don’t read many novels but I will read anything on the legendary Musashi who roamed feudal Japan in the early 1600s. He was a philosopher, a painter, a sculptor, a strategist, a writer, an architect, a wanderer, a calligrapher, a poet and a ronin…a Samurai without a master. “I practice many arts and abilities- all things with no…

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All things with no teacher.

All things with no teacher.

I just finished reading a 970 page historical novel. I generally don’t read many novels but I will read anything on the legendary Musashi who roamed feudal Japan in the early 1600s. He was a philosopher, a painter, a sculptor, a strategist, a writer, an architect, a wanderer, a calligrapher, a poet and a ronin…a Samurai without a master. “I practice many arts and abilities- all things with no…

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Waiting at the Amsterdam Airport

Waiting at the Amsterdam Airport

I found this little 4′ x 6″ sketch I did waiting for a plane 3 or 4 years ago. I forgot all about it. Killed some time I guess.

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