Meet Robin Cole | Fine Artist & Art Instructor (drawing & painting)

We had the good fortune of connecting with Robin Cole and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Robin, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
As a fine artist, I didn’t have much of a choice, to be honest! We are solo workers with a specific craft, and while there are more traditional jobs available to many other types of artists (illustrators, designers, etc.), painters typically work with a relatively straightforward model of selling our paintings to the public, either on our own or through galleries. I do a bit of both.

The other aspect of my business is teaching, and this pursuit has been a bit more diverse and complex over the years. I started out teaching privately, then transitioned into weaving together a full-time load via various adjunct positions at colleges and universities. Relocation requires re-creating the connections that make these jobs possible, and after two moves in two years, I decided to focus my efforts on private workshops, demos, classes, and individual lessons with only occasional appearances as faculty at colleges and the local Art Students League. This has proved both fruitful and rewarding, and while it certainly comes with its own challenges in terms of administration and marketing, it has many perks! I love working with students who specifically seek me out and are ready to put in the time required to see real progress.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I doubt anyone with a well-developed professional journey would ever claim it was easy! Every path is beset with doubts and failures, both small and large, within your control or beyond it. But these journeys are filled with joy and successes as well (both small and large, within our control or beyond it!), and mine certainly has been. Most of these latter have come about through my adherence to the “Luck favors the prepared mind” way of approaching things. I work incredibly hard to hone my knowledge and skill, to seek out (okay, chase down) opportunities, to build connections and indulge my curiosities. The fruits of these labors have helped keep me afloat during times when sales were thin, or teaching jobs/students were unavailable, or I fundamentally doubted my artistic merit (this happens regularly!). I am also pretty shameless about the side hustle when needed. I’ll do anything, and I held down quite a few odd jobs early in my career before painting was paying the bills. A mentor of mine encouraged me to think of my day job as my “patron”—something that helps relieve the pressure from your creative practice—and I think this is an excellent frame of mind. The willingness to work hard to make ends meet taught me to truly value my artistic opportunities and successes when they came around, and that variety of experience has helped me to get creative about ways of furthering my true endeavors.

In terms of my artistic work, I am a representational painter. This means, as we joke amongst ourselves, that we “paint things that look like things.” It’s a highly skill-based trade that requires constant work and study. Through my paintings I explore and share my love of nature, of literature, of light, of subtlety, of poetry, and of beauty. The navigation of contemporary realism through my own individual lens is an infinite source of excitement and challenge. I am proud to have built a career as an artist while successfully preserving the soulful spark that brought me to drawing in the first place. And I feel an equivalent satisfaction when my students share their quantum leaps and joys and unique ways of understanding the visual world with me.

My deep connection to nature is at the root of nearly every painting or drawing I do, both in terms of my interest in the subject as well as what I wish to accomplish or communicate with the work. I see so much disconnect between us as individuals and the natural world around us, be it genuine wilderness or the (often overlooked) intrinsic wild nature of human beings. I approach my research and images with a combination of scientific curiosity and spiritual reverence. I am always listening for the whispers of meaning and beauty that are frequently too quiet for us to hear in our daily lives, the voices that are only audible when we are deeply still. I find great joy in drawing attention to the overlooked woodpile, the lingering of greens at dusk, or the familiar cheekbones of a beloved face. I suppose that in some small way, I am continually engaged in a project of trying to see and experience the world the way I did as a child, with unbiased curiosity.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well, we’d certainly have to start with a show opening at Gallery 1261! This is my home gallery and also my favorite in Denver. From there we’d probably spend some time exploring the neighboring galleries and the Art Museum…hopefully another show as excellent as the Rembrandt etchings will be on display. I can never get enough of soaking up some sun at local breweries in the Rino, Berkeley, and Arvada areas, though this certainly sits best after some exploratory hikes with the dogs on our many local trails! If my friend was an artist, we’d take advantage of some plein air painting opportunities up in the hills or around town at the Botanic Gardens and other enchanting venues.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
So many people have helped me along the way! The Boettcher Foundation gave me a strong start as a young adult, making it possible for me to attend Colorado College as a Boettcher Scholar. This versatile liberal arts education, coupled with the freedom from crippling debt, really provided the educational foundation and courage I needed to pursue fine arts at the graduate level. My time at Laguna College of Art and Design and the incredible peers and faculty I had access to there helped hone my technical skills and creative mind. But perhaps most importantly, artistic mentors and friends have always advocated for me along the way. Many of the opportunities that have come my way are due to this. I am deeply grateful for their vision and generosity, and I consider it my personal mission to pay it forward at every opportunity with whatever resources I currently have available.

Website: www.robincole.art

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robincole.art/?hl=en

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-cole-fine-artist/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robincole.art/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWMu4jKmk6-jx6-DtiMxOfA

Other: Made For Artists online video tutorials: https://mfa.studio/sign-up/robin-cole