Like many if not most artists, I have loved to draw for as long as I can remember. What started out as something I did for fun developed over my childhood years into a desire to be more accomplished. I majored in art as a high school student and then decided to pursue an art degree in college.

 

I graduated with a B.A. in Art from Columbus State University in 1977. My hope upon graduating was to become a self-supporting studio artist. Then reality set in. It didn’t take long to realize that the art world was not waiting with bated breath for me to burst on the scene. While I was occasionally selling some work and showing in some exhibits, it wasn’t enough to pay the bills. And working at low wage, physical labor type jobs was tiring and left me not enough time or energy to create.

 

Eventually I found a career in a non-art related field that paid enough for me to live relatively comfortably. But it still left me little time to devote to seriously pursuing artwork. Then came marriage and later parenthood and no time at all for much else.

 

Fast forward to 2018. By then I was ready to retire. My wife and I had been living in a small town in South Carolina but wanted to relocate somewhere larger. We decided on the metro Columbia area and eventually had a house built in Lexington. One of the must-haves on our list for our new house was studio space for me.

 

I wasn’t sure how well it would work out, or if it was even worth the effort. But I was encouraged by my first few tries and kept at it. Eventually I joined an artist guild and began to show some of my paintings. Then I took the next step and entered several juried shows and was accepted. I felt like I was on the right track.

 

As the saying goes, life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. But it seems to have worked out for the better for me in the long run. Hopefully I’ve still got some years left and I fully intend to make the most of them as a serious artist.

 

John Derhammer

February 2024