5 minute read
Thom Robinson
~by Rachel Berenson Perry (courtesy photos)
Though Thom Robinson is best known for his artwork, he’s a fellow whose skills are wide-ranging. A renaissance man of sorts, he’s a carpenter, builder, former tool and die shop owner, designer, cook, gardener, father, grandpa, and mushroom hunter, in addition to being an artist. He’s also anything but provincial. He’s lived and/or worked throughout the USA before settling in Brown County.
Raised in Flint, Michigan, Robinson joined the U.S. Navy in the early 1970s (toward the end of the Vietnam war) because he wanted to see the world. Instead, he was stationed in San Diego. Never one to complain, he served his time and planned to return to the upper Midwest.
But the small community of Bedford, Indiana, caught his fancy when he went there with his wife to visit her relatives. Robinson raised a son and daughter in Bedford, and now has a grandson and granddaughter. His wife, Pat, also has a son and daughter.
A skilled machinist, Robinson set up a tool and die company; a vocation that requires innovation. His capacity for inventing extremely precise designs combined with his skill at operating machine tools made for a thriving business. He became a respected prototype designer who was in demand by Westinghouse, Otis Elevator, and Cook Medical, to name a few clients.
Robinson’s skill at imagining things in 3-D easily translates into creating oil paintings. He had been making art intermittently ever since taking classes at the Flint Institute of the Arts as a child and teenager. When Thom and Pat left Lawrence County to be closer to her job in Indianapolis, he took a studio at the Stutz Building to concentrate full-time on his artwork. But Brown County, where Robinson had been painting on and off since the 1990s, called to him.
Finding wooded acreage on Wychwood Drive across from an entrance to the Brown County State Park, he and Pat took the plunge and bought it. The conundrum for a man who can do almost anything, however, is time. Building a cabin for eventual full-time occupation takes a lot of it, not to mention energy, skill, and expense.
Originally constructing a 640-square-foot cabin in 2014, Robinson added a bedroom suite with full bathroom as well as a front porch and back deck in the following years. Currently, he is putting the finishing touches on a separate studio/garage next to the house. “The Amish framed it up and the concrete was done by local guys,” he said. “But all the rest of it has been done by me.” The 12’ X 28’ building accommodates two vehicles and work tools in the garage. A studio space with large north windows, 11-foot ceiling, and room for storage racks is in the lower level. Though not yet completed on the inside, the studio already houses stacks of finished and unfinished paintings.
With an artist’s typical indifference for past works, he flips through the colorful canvases like a deck of cards. “What I really like to do is paint outside in the snow,” he admits. Anymore, it seems as though he must go out west to find blankets of white under blue skies. He and Pat often travel to Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming to camp and snowshoe.
With good friend Ed West (now deceased), Robinson often talked about his passion for painting scenes out west at their weekly Artist Breakfasts, a tradition begun decades ago by the late Ron Elkins. “Why don’t you go out and paint at my place in Wyoming?” Ed asked. “Bring lots of paint—there’s 15,000 acres.” Robinson followed directions to a 40-mile off-road track into the alpine woods. Finally arriving at a rustic cabin, he wasn’t sure he was at the correct place until he saw Ed driving away. The peace and beauty of the remote setting inspired many paintings.
Last early spring, Thom and Pat snow-shoed in Bryce Canyon, Utah, where the white-frosted orange rock formations contrast dramatically with deep blue skies.
“He gets in the zone when painting outside,” Pat said. “If I’m not with him, I send him texts. ‘Drink water!’ or he forgets.”
As the years have melted away, Robinson continues to meet a group for the Sunday “Artist Breakfast” but laments the loss of many artist friends: Dick Ferrer, Wayne Waldron, Von Williamson, and others.
And so, the artist colony of Nashville, Indiana, changes with the times as older artists disappear and new artists take their place. Thom Robinson is now one of the old timers, continuing to paint outside whenever possible and planning gatherings in his hand-built cabin and studio.
His work can be found at the Brown County Art Guild browncountyartguild.org or on his website tcrobinson.com .
