Brad Basil

My art career started with my parents encouraging my brother and me from the time we could put a crayon to paper, or as
some parents have experienced, also the wall. My mother and father loved to paint, dance, play music and sing, so it was
inevitable to learn the song flute before we started elementary school where Dad taught Band. Our free time with him was
spent often in the West Virginia hills learning to hunt and fish, but his private time was spent often at the dining room table
sketching a deer or trout before applying oil paint, and giving us tips ...thus the Illustrator. My mother taught tap dance and
loved writing poetry, and I recall going to local Artist Guild classes with her where I exchange my crayons for pastels. In
warm seasons Mom would send us to Leading Creek with a pail to bring clay back home where we would form pinch pots
and decorative objects. There were a few special times I remember she volunteered to visit school and show my classmates
how to ‘finger-paint’... thus the Impressionist.
In the 1960’s my public school teachers welcomed students to draw art on the chalkboards pertaining to History, English
and Science subjects, followed by Junior and High School art teachers that encouraged me to use my imagination freely.
Then it was channeled into something marketable at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh where I graduated in 1977. I was hired
soon after that by an outdoor advertising firm and introduced to a new form of communication -- the ‘Billboard’, which
required a layout taken to a larger scale, where I used large paint brushes for large lettering to be visible from the highways of
America. Their professional training would also include the high tech assistance of a large opaque projector strapped to the
top of a 12ft. ladder bolted to a mechanic’s dolly, a technique I would later apply to painting murals in my shop, or on
location. That was 1978, before computer software expanded the graphic design industry with digital art and large format
printing, yet I still use an old opaque projector today to help with layouts before I begin applying paint to canvas. After 2
years I moved back to Elkins, WV to work in a frame shop and gallery, learning to cut glass, mat board, wood moulding, but I
had the calling to get back to creating art, which led me to the Atlanta School of Art in Georgia. I should of done my
homework before orientation day, for after the anticipated tour of the Senior Art Gallery I was humbled to see no practical
application of the abstract art exhibited, and learned the definition of a Fine Art School - where art professors teach students to
be art professors. I returned back home to WV realizing it was time to take my parent’s guidance and try hand lettering signs
for personal income, where I worked out of our 2 car garage and was also hired part time at a local silkscreen shop until I was
busy enough to make the decision to build a tshirt and sign shop accessible to local commerce. Taking up watercolor painting
for wildlife and landscape painting, as well, it was necessary to hire some talented people to help operate the Art Medium
Company and incorporated in downtown Elkins, WV in 1990.
In the late ‘90’s I became involved in “guest” teaching elementary art classes, where I had a profound revelation seeing
most of the children enthusiastically coloring shapes that turned into innately good art from an abstract perspective. Over
time I would come to believe that it is natural for every child because it is their first means of communication before
expressing themselves thru verbal and written language, but also observed this ‘gift’ diminished greatly by adolescence. I
grew up hearing the theory “their artistic talent shows they’re Right Brain Dominance”, and the belief “art is a natural gift of
God”, but were both merely myths to be forgotten so easily? The answer came when observing my own infant son and
daughter with crayons and saw how pleasing each of their forms of expression thru shapes and color were with little guidance.
When the pencil was incorporated into their art time they both created stories with drawings beyond what the average child
was taking time to do, but also began showing individual styles I saw in my parents, as well as that of their mother and I. One
the Illustrator, the other the Impressionist. So do we each have a natural gift from our Creator, or it is inherited? I now believe
it is both, but still how can so much be forgotten, or does it just go to sleep? The answer became clear, and later confirmed in
the story I read of the Ethiopian reading the Book of Isaiah and Phillip asked if he understood it, “....how can I know unless
someone guides me”. Parents and teachers praise with good intentions those with drawing skills more than those that
compose with color and form, and just as that child-like spirit fades in the world. The Impressionist in me was beginning to
wake up.
Today, downsized and self employed, I relocated The Art Medium Company to my home 2 miles North of Elkins, WV,
with emphasis on commercial art and signs. I still use an old school projector, but it was necessary in the 90’s to get
acquainted with a desktop computer, graphics software, scanner and a plotter, and almost 10 years later the Internet made it
possible to live in a rural area with the ability to send designs to customers and access information from almost anywhere in
the world. I still have bookshelves with my favorite books of religion and philosophy, wildlife and archaeology, historical
references and photos, but now go online to do most research and studying. In looking back on my years, it amazes me most
to think of the similarities of my painting on the wall at home with that of my prehistoric ancestor painting an ox head on his
wall 35,000 years ago, and that symbol would one day be copied by a hand held stick onto a clay tablet called Cuneiform. It
in turn would be replaced by papyrus with Hieroglyphics that would influence the first alphabet created by the Phoenicians
and that ox on a stone wall would give us this Roman upper case letter ‘A’ that I just typed on a keyboard to send thru a
quantum realm. When looking back at thousands of drawings as the ‘Body’ of my work, I seem to relate more with the likes
of Norman Rockwell the Illustrator, but with spiritual eyes opened there is a deeper admiration of Claude Monet the Painter /
Impressionist. These paintings have been made in the last 15 years are my attempt to bring both “body and spirit” together,
and illustrate a perennial truth found throughout the ages in metaphor, parables and poetry and hope they will encourage you
on your own life journey to see yourself and others of the world in the pages of the Bible and other ancient words of wisdom,
and to seek a deeper respect of the arts, crafts and sculptures created by gifted artists from around the world -- from myths to
miracles.