Artist has a colorful life

Jim Taylor demostrates how he wants his students to approach drawing an item. Taylor is offering a drawing workshop at his studio on West Cemetery Street. (Left to right) Norma Owen, Joyce Metters, John Coppley, Jim Taylor, Joyce Cavanagh-Wood and Carolyn Blackman. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Jim Taylor (standing) works his way around a room of students taking a drawing class from him at his studio on West Cemetery Street in Salisbury. From left to right, Carolyn Blackman, Joyce Metters, Norma Owen, Jim Taylor and John Coppley. The current exercise is to make a quick rendering of one's on hand. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Sharpened pencils await for the students as Jim Taylor teaches a drawing class at his studio on West Cemetery Street in Salisbury. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Jim Taylor draws a picture of his foot. When Taylor asks his students to draw an item, he does the same. A class of students are taking a drawing workshop from him. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Jim Taylor explains how he wants his students to approach drawing an item. Taylor is offering a drawing workshop at his studio on West Cemetery Street. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

Jim Taylor draws his hand which is one of the exercise that his students were asked to do. Taylor is offering a drawing workshop at his studio on West Cemetery Street. Joyce Cavanagh-Wood is on the back left. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

By Susan Shinn

For The Salisbury Postollowing Jim Taylor around is a bit like trying to pin down a big, friendly puppy. He's all over the place.

But he's a fantastic artist.

"I've had this interesting, colorful life," says Jim, 65.

Indeed.

Jim grew up in Hawaii until he was 10, when he moved with his mother to Kansas City. When he was 15, he ran away from home with Jean Wurster's twin brother, and later lived for a time with the family.

Jean's mom became his second mom.

Jim joined the Navy and spent most of his adult life in New England.

He's worked as a photographer, an illustrator, an art director — and he's a pretty fair carpenter, should he decide to focus on that.

Last September, he went to Mississippi to care for his ailing mother and ended up spending a week in Salisbury at Jean's suggestion.

"I was amazed artistically about what was going on here," Jim says.

So giving into his wanderlust once again, he moved here in November, renting a studio on West Cemetery Street, arriving with Zeus, his big, friendly dog, in tow.

"I've done everything in commercial art, everything in photography that I want to do," he says. "Now, I want to paint fine art, and teach."

He adds, "Art is what I do." It's also the name of his studio.

At first, he laid low and observed.

But, he says, "I really need new ground to conquer."

He's started offering classes in drawing and painting. He is a member of Plein Air Carolina, and demonstrated a self-portrait for the group one Friday. That was all the advertising he needed to fill up a drawing class.

You need to draw, first, he explains, before you move to painting.

Jim prefers to work in oils. He's taught classes for more than 25 years.

"It has inspired us to try to do self-portraits," says artist Phyllis Steimel. "Jim is very congenial and easy to talk to. We really appreciate having him in our group."

Locally, his work can be found at Carolina Art Garden in Cornelius.

At present, Jim is working on a series of paintings for a gallery in Rhode Island.

There are scenes of Quonochotontaug Beach in Rhode Island, a rocky seascape. (The name means "home of the black fish.") There's Picnic Rock, where he received his first kiss. He's painted a mother carrying her young toddler at Green Hill Beach.

"That's quite a breakthrough painting for me," he says. "I don't usually put figures in my paintings."

He goes from that series over to another wall, where pictures of his two children take up most of the space.

"I loved having children," says Jim, who came to fatherhood later, at 47. "Best thing I ever did."

His daughter, Tille, is 16, and son Khalil is 14.

"It's been a magical time," he says of being a parent. "It's just been super."

He's a poet, too.

From the lines of a poem he wrote, just last week, he writes, "oh, how I want to art, learn art as a verb, to really learn to look ..."

Some might accuse him of having attention-deficit disorder, but he sees himself as more of an entrepreneur. He ran a photo lab at Harvard Square in Boston.

"I know how to meet a bottom line," he says.

To the right of his front door is a white board with a list of canvas sizes. Some have titles by them, some don't. He has many canvases waiting to be filed.

At the moment, he prefers very horizontal paintings. His Rhode Island series is done on canvases that measure 24 inches by 48 inches.

"I have so much energy," he admits. "I make everybody tired."

He even makes himself tired. But when he wants a break from the series, he returns to his easel, where there's a 24 inch by 36 inch painting in progress of the rolling sea.

"That gives me a little relief," he says of the latter painting.

"Then when I come back to the series, I'm stronger."

He flips through a stack of unfinished paintings 'til he finds what he wants — a series of pen and ink drawings, on the waterfront at Point Judith, R.I. They're dated 1979.

"I've been doing this a lonnnnng time," he says, stretching out the word for emphasis.

So how does he know when a painting is done, when all of the oil is on the canvas?

There's a process to painting, he explains. Over a given period of time, you eventually get a sense of how much you can accomplish. You add layers and let the layers dry.

In a museum, most people observe paintings at 6 to 8 feet. When it looks done at that distance, well, it's done.

Now back to teaching, where his current passions clearly lie.

Part of teaching, Jim says, entails instruction of "image mechanics" — how you put a painting together, when you know its done.

He used to worry when too many students brought in pictures of cats on hearths. But he learned not to concern himself with subject matter, just the mechanics.

Before long, his students were painting their own cats on their own hearths.

"It was magic, magic," he says. "I can do art, but to turn on people so they can do it — Wow! That's my passion now."

Traditions and methods have been passed down through generations of artists — all the way back to Pythagoras and his golden proportions.

"I think it's empowering to explore art," Jim says. "If you engage it, it's personal empowerment. Exploration is the most magical thing. I could walk out into the world and in just a couple of blocks find 15 things to paint.

"That's magic."

For more information about classes, contact James E. Taylor at 413-768-9963 or jimjet1944@ gmail.com.nnn

Freelance writer Susan Shinn lives in Salisbury.