The apprentice: Existing for art, painter's brush enriches life with a spiritual twist
Ed's note: Confession time: as a writer, sometimes I'm faced with subjects I know are beyond me. As Daffy Duck one said, "This looks like a job for Super Duck! But, since he's not around. . ."
That was the case in trying to capture David Freeman in words. Just to add to that sense, as we were laying out this edition, art historian Tom Wilkinson came expolding into the office. "I've got a story," he said, clearly excited. "I've just met this painter. You've got to meet David Freeman--"
"This guy? I smiled, handing him a picture, tapping on the story on the light table.
MT. PLEASANT - Prior to his career launch as an artist, David Freeman studied the humanities in the usual ways, working at Wal Mart and peddling fast-food upgrades from the drive-in window at Taco Bell. Want fries with that?
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"Whatever it is when it comes to art, David has it," said Jan Williamson, who began a Pittsburg business called Plenty's Horn with partner Barbara Wertz in the 1990's. Three years ago, David walked in, looking for work. Jan asked if he had a portfolio. He did, in the classic sense of the spotted mutt.
"He went back out to his car and came in with a little photo album, pictures of the most rudimentary work," she said, but she recognized him immediately. More accurately, she recognized his brush strokes, she said. Later, she found the portfolio he presented was but a slice of his stuff, just the works in progress.
"I don't know that I'd ever met him before that day," she said, "but I'd judged high school art contests and I remembered seeing these awesome paintings done with the same signature style. We hired him on the spot."
Plenty's Horn thrives in a niche market. Been looking for an $8,000 bunk bed for the children's room? Dreaming of the matching $2,500 crib? Consumed with the notion of a multi-thousand dollar bureau? Plenty's Horn can lay one right on you.
The business is a story in itself, beginning when Barbara and Jan each put up $500 and produced a line of hand-painted pillows.
"Our first order was from a boutique on Rodeo Drive," said Jan, whose life, like David's has been consumed by her art. Recognized today by high end decorators in an international market, Jan and Barbara's partnership began with a chance meeting.
"Barbara's car broke down in my driveway," she said.
On the one hand, David's story is that of a dreamer refusing to relinquish his dream. On the other hand, he gave himself no options. It wasn't so much that university study wasn't an option - it simply didn't interest him.
"When I got out of high school, I was just so happy to be out in the world, just to be a part of it," he said. "Not that there's anything bad, or wrong with schools and classrooms - it's just such a small place to exist compared to the world."
Asked to describe art, without a self conscious thought, his conversation expands.
"We're specs in the cosmos, everybody on the same basic trip," he said. "If we're trapped within ourselves, concerned with our own existence, we miss the chance to experience what life's about, which is the people around us, the world around us, and the chance to do and be whatever we're capable of conceiving, and then to express what we see and think and believe in a way that opens doors to the infinite nature of time and space beyond us, that place where you begin really understanding that we're all equal, that none of us is greater or lesser than the other."
He's 28.
The notion that such romance could be dismissed as the wishful musing of youth, or the more cynical thought of youth parading as a romantic, is deflated by the woman who hired him, who trusts and depends on him daily.
"His ability as an artist is one thing," she said. "His ability to take the lead in our paint room is another. He's so humble, so quiet, and as respectful of other people's talents and ideas as he is of his own. He's serious without being burdened."
High school, fast food and mass merchandising training not withstanding, David says he discovered art in his father's garage.
"My dad moonlighted as a sign painter," he said. "Whether it was because I wanted to be with him or wanted to do what he did, or both, I imitated the man I most admired." Before he began school, David began learning the disciplined art of calligraphy. In grade school he sketched. In high school he painted. Between lawn mowing gigs after school, he was painting murals for moonlighting pay.
To describe him as unburdened is not to say the weight of his work is taken lightly.
Months have passed since he was offered work painting a mural at West New Hope, a country Methodist church on the edge of Daphne Prairie in Franklin County.
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He didn't leap at the job. Beyond the time required to paint 450 square feet or so, there was the consideration of what he was painting and where he was painting.
"I wanted to do it, but the subject matter has been represented so many times I had to think of what I could do that would be in some way unique," he said. "I wanted to be certain my heart was in it - you don't just waltz into a place where people worship and start painting walls."
Ultimately, he poured 200 hours, Saturdays and weekends into the work before taking off a week to finish the job.
From a distance of 40 feet, an antique, bent-wood frame separates nine scenes, beginning with the manger. From five feet, the frame is two dimensional, the illusion of a skilled creation. From 40 feet, Christ dominates a panoramic view of the feeding of the 5,000. From five feet, he's two inches tall.
"It's the way the light falls on him," David said.
The garden where Christ prayed the night before the crucifixion is brooding and dark; the ascension is as light as the heavens.
Back at Plenty's Horn, Jan Williamson doesn't expect David to be forever a part of the business.
"He may not even realize it yet," she said, "but he'll be moving on. He's a sponge - he absorbs everything there is to learn. It's going to be nice some day to say that he was here, that a part of whatever he becomes is what he learned while he was here, and that he took what he learned and used it to make himself more."