Today we’d like to introduce you to Ron Breeden.
Ron, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I was born in 1956 in Southern California to a creative family. My Father built cabinets and fine furniture and My Mother was a painter who gave up a career as a commercial artist to raise a family.
I began drawing at an early age. In fact, I can’t remember not drawing. My parents bought me a “You can Draw” Jon Nagy set when I was like 5 or 6 to help me draw things more realistic and less cartoony. But I did gain some local notoriety as the first cartoonist on my high school newspaper.
I attended college at Loma Linda University earning a Bachelor’s Degree there and went on to get a Master’s Degree at California State University at Los Angeles, a school very well respected for its art department.
After College, I got a real job with the State of California because I knew I could support myself with that, but I continued to make art and show it. When openings came up in art centers I would take them so I could continue to show and create art on the side. When I retired I started to paint and sculpt full time.
I have shown at various galleries throughout Southern California, most notably in Los Angeles where he garnered the reputation as “The Dog Guy”.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I do wood sculpture, Oil paintings of Landscape and animals, but I am best known for my paintings of dogs. My dog paintings have one of three themes. When I first started painting the dogs all the paintings were pretty much allegorical. They were about being a person in our current society, as told to us by a creature that loved us best and most wanted to be like us, our dogs. I started painting these in the very late 80’s and still paint them today; they are just subtler now. The second theme is one of death and remembrance. They are about memories, memorials and honoring those we loved and have lost. The newest theme is just about dogs being dogs. I find myself painting more of these now, although I paint plenty of the others, as well. The models for the paintings are usually of my dogs. They are handy, work for cheap, and I love them; but I also do portraits of other people’s dogs, on commission.
The Landscape/ nature paintings were the first things I did, but as the dogs became more popular, I just quit doing them. A couple of years ago I was talking to some other artists and they were talking about painting in exotic locations. I mostly live in the Sierra Nevada Mountains now and I was having a discussion with one of my neighbors about a bear that had been going in people’s back yards and did he see the bobcat that was running across the road, etc. The other artists quit talking and started listening to our conversation and were acting like we lived some place really remote and more exotic than the far off places they had been discussing. So I thought it might be a good idea to return to nature as a subject matter and started paintings scenery and animals from just around the neighborhood.
I always liked to work with wood. My dad is a very good furniture builder and cabinet maker, and as a kid I would go out to the shop with him and help where I could. As I got more into art making and became interested in doing 3 dimensional art, wood was a natural material for me to choose. The wood sculptures are a lot more paired down and abstracted than the paintings. They take forever to complete but I really enjoy them because I like working with wood, it honors my dad and it is something different than my other work and is a change of pace.
What would you recommend to an artist new to the city, or to art, in terms of meeting and connecting with other artists and creatives?
I’m not a real joiner when it comes to art clubs or co-ops, but both things are ways of meeting people and getting feedback on your work. 2nd Saturday art walks or exhibition/show openings are where I go when I want to talk to other artists. But I worked long and hard to get a pretty unique way of painting and am not real open to advice on how to make my art look like everybody else. I just want to do my own thing. I’m ok with lonely.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I lost my last Gallery representation a couple of years ago and just haven’t gotten around to make the rounds, hat in hand to get a new one. I have a website www.ronbreedenfineart.com where you can see my work. If they are interested, they can contact me through the website and I can ship to anywhere.
Contact Info:
- Address: 16270 Pasquale Road
Nevada City, CA 95959 - Website: ronbreedenfineart.com
- Phone: 5304785975
- Email: ronbreeden@comcast.net
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ron-Breeden-Fine-Art-146539158817179/
Image Credit:
Ron Breeden; KVIE Sacramento
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