There are no words to describe the growing body of work that a mixed media artist has created. You have to see it to experience it. And that is what Rex Batson, Pacific’s newest self-styled artist in residence is hoping for.
When it comes to words, Batson is a master. He has taught college English and literature for more than thirty years in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Des Moines. He has edited books for academic authors, big scholastic tomes approaching 1,000 pages. He has written book reviews for academic journals and local newspapers. And he has penned a – still in progress – manuscript on his own life which he has titled Traumas and Maladies. He thinks he will eventually finish it.
But words are no longer his primary tool, he said. He has a new life as a visual artist and he loves it. His mixed media style is so eclectic that he wouldn’t even attempt to describe his art pieces with words.
You can see some of it for yourself, though. Pat Dubuque has created a one man show in the gallery hallway at First State Community Bank, 302 West St. Louis Street, and encourages everyone to come by and see it. Ten large pieces are on display.
This is a tiny portion of the hundreds of pieces Batson has created since he switched from literature to visual arts five years ago. Every piece, he said, has been an adventure. He did not know what the end piece would be when he started.
After Pat introduced me to Batson through the display of his work at the bank, I knocked on the door of his studio and he invited me in. The unfinished room with its cathedral ceiling, bulging shelves, cupboards, wall hangings and crowded tabletop, looks like something out of a Van Gogh TV documentary, minus the bandaged ear. Even though he has only been there a few months, the studio has the lived in look of a long inhabited artist’s workplace. An 1885 Kendall hand-cranked spider printing press with unfinished work piled on top fills one corner.
With a slightly disheveled shock of white hair, rumpled shirt and paint-stained apron, Batson is the finishing touch to his studio. Comfortable with a guest, he pours out the story of his new home, noting that he moved to Pacific to start a new chapter in his life as an artist and art instructor in a personal studio.
He has taken an apartment in the historic Thiebes building, above Little Ireland Coffee and has rented the 600 square foot Little Ireland annex, that enters on Union Street, as a working studio, which is filled with works in progress. He has created books – some tiny, some large – another of his new passions, filled with page upon page of art projects that may some day end up on someone’s wall. He fingers through a stack of hand printed pictures of identical leaves in various arrangements. He thinks he may tint them and frame them. Or, he could bind them into another book.
“I wanted to buy a building, use the storefront as a gallery/studio and live upstairs,” he said. “Then I stumbled into the Little Ireland and met Maria (Brennan, owner-operator of Little Ireland) and asked her if there was a group in town that supported artists and craftsmen. I thought, maybe I shouldn’t move so fast. So I ended up renting the apartment upstairs and, eventually the studio in back.”
“I love my apartment,” he said.
Pat Dubuque is not the first curator of his work. A friend in Springfield set up a one-man show for him before COVID. He showed 31 works 24 pieces were bought during the show. An antique shop owner in Springfield saw the show and commissioned him to create some large pieces for display in his shop. When the first submitted pieces were too small, Batson pulled out a 14 ft. by 5 ft. painters tarp and began to splash paint on it. Spread out on the studio floor it seems to display a gigantic fish, writhing on a deep coral crowded ocean floor.
“I have to come up with an idea of how to frame it,” he said.
One of his best ideas for Pacific is that he has thoughts of creating a gallery/studio in one of the town’s store fronts. He would be open to the public several times a week where the public could see his latest work and local artists could use his equipment and expertise to create their own art, make a book or print original pieces on the antique Kendall press.
Like the individual pieces of art that fill his studio, the story of Batson as Pacific’s resident artist is a work in progress. We will see how it develops.
I am amazed at how you find these people with these amazing stories to write about. This story is captivating indeed. It makes my heart ❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ glad to know that this artist is pursuing his dream after all these years. It reminds me of the story of Cinderella at the ball. Let’s see if it will end as well as she did. I certainly hope so.