“ Learning to paint is slowing down to take a closer look, to see more and to bring our lifetime experience to it to determine the story that only we can tell. It is in the telling of our story that we discover more about ourselves. Through this process we really can do more than we thought we could. Painting is not about the result. Painting is a process that takes us out of our world of stress, that renews us, that changes us.
Having graduated with a BFA in Drawing at the Unitersity of Missouri I believed the myth that art was not sustainable as a career. So I took a left turn into the business world as entrepreneur of a typesetting/graphics business in Texas and then as a corporate executive in DC which convinced me I was in the wrong place doing the wrong kind of work.
In 1987 I resigned my corporate poisiton, gave up the big paycheck and dove head first with great joy into as many art classes as I could at the Art League of Northern Virginia at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria Virginia. In only a few short years I had discovered my love for watercolor. I turned professional in 1989 and moved out of the city to a sweet little town 40 miles away in Shepherdstown WV. There I opened Robin Young Studio Gallery and began sharing my love with others, teaching the joy of painting in classes and workshops at home and around the country. As I became a teacher I continued to learn about both painting and teaching from painters I befriended and admired including Katherine Lui, Alex Powers, Charles Reid and Joe Mayer.
As you will see my bio lacks a list of awards, prizes and accomplishments judged by others. Also missing is a list of galleries representing my work. From the beginning I painted to do my best, to tell the truth what and how I saw the world. It didn’t make sense to me for any painter to be judged better than another, one winning and one losing. For me, once a painting was complete I evaluated what I learned. Once that process was complete I was happy to share it with others and sell it to someone who connected with it.
So I cannot offer credentials of how “experts” judge me, it is only a question of what an individual might see in my painting that has meaning to them. My career has been funded by my selling my art in my gallery, on locations where I painted, and in many private exhibits. I did not pursue galleries to represent my work for it did not seem right that anyone should make a higher percent on my work than I do…..crazy. Obviously I did not paint for recognition nor fame. I paint so I can continue to paint.
