03.17.2008
Steele shares local vision during crawl
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Robert Steele signs a print for Tammy Pressly, who is buying the piece for her son, Friday at the Frame Gallery in downtown Statesville. Regan Hill photo |
Artist Robert Steele hasn’t lived in Statesville since departing for college more than 30 years ago, but childhood memories will always have a piece of his heart.
“If you come from one small town, images good and bad remain in your head forever,” Steele said. “I have a lot of relatives here. My family’s rooted here.”
Today a full-time professional painter, Steele hosted a signing Friday afternoon of his work, “Fort Dobbs: The edge of the frontier, 1754,” at the Frame Gallery in downtown Statesville.
Steele returned with his wife, Alice, and adult daughter, Catherine, in time for Friday’s art crawl.
About 27 downtown businesses showcases more than
60 area artists’ work at the Downtown Statesville Art Crawl. Several downtown businesses hosted events throughout the day.
A California resident since 1972, Steele returns to Statesville about twice a year. His grandfather, James Columbus Steele, founded the J.C. Steele and Sons company in Statesville.
Only 200 copies of his limited edition print were available at a cost of $150 each at the signing. All the proceeds from signed and numbered prints go toward the restoration of the Fort Dobbs historic site, Fort Dobbs Director Beth Hill said.
“Fort Dobbs’ primary mission is to support education and funding about the fort, North Carolina’s only French-Indian War site,” Hill said. “(Steele’s) painting is an interpretation of Fort Dobbs during the war.”
Steele’s longtime friend, Jerry Hill, a Fort Dobbs board member, asked Steele last summer to create a historical painting with print sales benefiting the Fort Dobbs nonprofit. Hill recalled Steele’s 1996-97 paintings of the Old Depot in Statesville that successfully raised money to help save the historic city landmark.
“We asked (Robert) if he would paint something, he said ‘yes,’ and we were glad,” Fort Dobbs board member and local historian David Pope said.
Prior to Friday’s exhibit, Steele shipped the original from California to Hill and his wife, Becky, in Statesville.
“We actually got the original (Ft. Dobbs painting) and displayed it in our home on an easel for several days before bringing it here (to the Frame Gallery) today,” Becky Hill said.
“I love the colors and the rich detail. (Robert) just beautifully depicts an important historical era in Statesville and Iredell County at that time.”
Growing up in Statesville, Steele recalls an important influence that helped shape his abilities as an artist was local teacher Louise Gilbert.
“They didn’t teach art in the schools,” Steele said. “(Gilbert) taught me until I was out of high school. She was very generous. She taught art, and it was very inexpensive - about $3 a lesson - and every couple of years, ... she would book a passage on a steamer down to South America and would come back with a big stack of paintings.”
Steele works primarily on commission through agents based in New York City. An upcoming project includes paintings focused on a “burial ground” for blacks near city hall in Manhattan in New York City, he said.
“What I’m doing more and more is just painting pictures by choice,” he said. “If someone says, ‘Can you paint the cover of my book?’ I’ll do that, but I’m getting to paint more of whatever I want to do.”
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For more information about Fort Dobbs or to view Steele’s painting of the fort, visit http://www.fortdobbs.org