Find ways to keep creating.
For visual artist Tom Stanley this is key.
Stanley, who turns 73 this month, has been making art in South Carolina for 31 years, but a recent move from Rock Hill to Durham, North Carolina ,helped him find a new path to expression.
“I have been working toward the exhibition at Lander (University) for almost a year,” Stanley said. “All the while, I did not feel as if I was making any progress, although I was working and painting all the time.”
In his artist statement about the show on view this month in Lander’s Fine Art Gallery — titled, “New Space/New Work” — Stanley said, “I was determined to make paintings that would reflect a restored sense of place that would sustain my spirit. At this stage in my career, I was less concerned about making bold statements as finding a renewed life in my art...”
Stanley is among innovators who have received South Carolina’s top arts honor, the Governor’s Awards for the Arts. Stanley is featured in a retrospective broadcast, on SCETV this month, highlighting nine high-profile recipients of South Carolina’s top arts honor.
“To be in the same group of artists as Leo Twiggs is hard for me to believe, but I’m really honored,” Stanley said, of the Governor’s Awards recipients showcased in the broadcast.
Stanley has also worked as a gallery director and as fine arts department chairperson at the college level.
Throughout his career, Stanley has sought out and worked with what he calls “outsider artists.”
“I helped put together several shows for people who are not academically-trained artists,” Stanley said. “There are some really good ones. Now, some of them have work in museum collections.
“What I enjoy is not just their work, but realizing that what they do is a reflection of them,” Stanley said. “It’s honest and there’s an integrity to it, even if it’s rough around the edges...From them, you learn to use what you know and what you have.”
A South Carolina artist with whom Stanley worked was the now late self-taught Gene Merritt, who drew many celebrity portraits from people he saw on television.
Stanley tapped into these fellow creatives often by calling newspapers and inquiring about local artists.
Not until he was a college freshman registering for classes did Stanley realize it was possible to study art as a main academic focus.
So, that’s what he did.
“I’ve always had a job related to the arts, whether picture-framing to make money or something else,” Stanley said. “I never stopped painting when I was a gallery director or chair of fine arts at Winthrop University,” he said. “I would stretch canvas panels and paint a number of them at the same time.
“This alludes to a time, after undergraduate school, when I got a job in New Jersey, with a wall accessory company that produced art for the furniture market,” Stanley said. “I made prototypes and would make them in a series of 20 or 30 at a time. ...I think it carried over when I would make stretched frames.”
Going from one painting to the next, in a studio, Stanley said resulting work often would be “a little bit too similar.”
During some of Stanley’s time at Winthrop University, Sandy Singletary was a graduate assistant working in the art office. Now, Singletary is an associate professor of art and department chairperson for Lander University’s department of art and design, in the college of arts and humanities.
“He (Tom Stanley) would encourage you to make art, and make more art, in the ‘just do it’ kind of way,” Singletary said. “He taught by example. He worked in the hallway outside his studio on campus. It was possible to see his works transform as they developed. He is an amazing artist.”
Fellow Lander University art professor Doug McAbee, who received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Winthrop University, said Stanley taught him to be “honest and vulnerable” in his artwork.
For this latest body of work, Stanley switched things up and worked on paintings one at a time. “New Space/New Work” at Lander has 13 paintings in it, some of which have already piqued the interest of art buyers and collectors in other states.
“All works in this show at Lander have been done in 2022,” Stanley said. “The first one, I didn’t like it very much, because it was like a sampler of all the other work I had ever done. ...It didn’t make sense until I continued. ...I really enjoy discovering what’s going to happen and I learn a lot in that process.”
Stanley’s works incorporate a mix of geometric, mechanical and architectural elements. Visitors will note abstraction and techniques such as sgraffito, scratching a layer of paint’ to reveal contrasting layers beneath it.
“It’s almost more of a felt thing when you know a work is finished,” Stanley said. “There are certain processes and shapes that I use over and over again. I really enjoy discovering what a painting will be.”
Stanley said his work to this day incorporates mechanical drawing skills he was introduced to in high school.
“It’s drawing in an exacting way,” he said. “Using drafting tools like T-squares and triangles and compasses. I have plenty of them. The only problem is, mine have paint all over them. Backgrounds of my works have a lot of free-handed renderings, but there are more precise images and shapes that I build. You can’t draw a perfect circle.”
Stanley said he used tape to “mask off” spaces in his works.
“I spend more on tape than I probably do on paint,” he said. “You find whatever works for you.”
