Renowned area artist Bruce Marsh has a solo show at the Allyn Gallup Gallery in Sarasota through December 31.
Ruskin artist Bruce Marsh currently has a solo exhibit at Sarasota’s Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art Gallery through Dec. 31. His art, much like the artist, is timeless. You simply have to stand in front of it to experience it, making it well worth the short drive to Sarasota to see his work. Mitch Traphagen photo.
Bruce Marsh walked out of his house and opened the door to his studio that he shares with his wife, artist Dolores Coe, on the banks of the Little Manatee River. He was barefoot and wearing faded Levi’s. Timeless.
Marsh recently celebrated a birthday but unless asked (which he would no doubt state without hesitation), his age is a mystery, particularly to those who know him. Marsh is somehow simultaneously both a young and old soul. Like his Levi’s, he is timeless, ageless. It is a feat that is most remarkable in this bipolar era of instant celebrity and instant obscurity; where Internet stars are born and fade with the mood of the collective mind of the public, a fickle mind, indeed. As an artist, he seems to unconsciously, effortlessly walk a line, a thread, perhaps, by which we all move forward.
And inside the studio is his art, the physical embodiment of his eyes, hands, heart and soul. Evolution from his work in the 1960s is highly evident, and even from work he completed only years ago, but beneath it all, where the viewer’s eyes get lost in the detail and the brush strokes, the timelessness remains.
Last month, Marsh opened a solo exhibit at the Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art Gallery in Sarasota. The exhibit will run to the end of December. Entitled “Now and Then Paintings,” the exhibit is not a simple collection of his various pieces but rather was curated by Mark Ormond, a highly respected art curator. It represents a thoughtful collective of his work from the early 2000s to today.
Marsh has been painting for five decades. Until attending college, he felt his sister had inherited art talent that he lacked, but his sheer love pushed him to become an art major in the hopes of teaching. After receiving his master’s degree from Cal Tech, he applied for positions across the country and received two offers.
Through encouragement in his college years, he discovered and nurtured his own unique and deep artistic talent. He loves teaching — and he continues to do so in many ways today — but creating art soon became a part of him.
“I married early and had a couple of kids and knew that I couldn’t support myself on my art — and I really enjoyed teaching,” Marsh said. “I applied all over the country and got two offers, one in Oklahoma and one in St. Petersburg. There was really no choice for me.”
Marsh sees the beauty in what thousands of people may pass every day. He puts his heart and soul into making every square inch of his paintings count. Ruskin and South Hillsborough play an important role in his work. Mitch Traphagen file photo.
And success followed — both academically and artistically.
“I had some early success with my work in Florida,” he said. “At that time I would do shows, and that could mean a weekend of picking up some money, which was just amazing to me. In 1969 I went to USF and that was just wonderful. Back then, the College of Fine Arts was more important than the football team. For all those years, I was essentially teaching, and beyond that, my responsibility was to produce art. The primary emphasis was on research and our research was painting. It was wonderful — I never had to worry about selling something to make the rent.”
Photography has long been a passion as well as a component of his art. He records what he sees with his artistic eye to bring back for his canvas. And for photography, he has the U.S. Army to thank.
“I spent three years in the Army at Governor’s Island in New York,” he said. “It was interesting, my days were mostly playing pingpong, but they had a darkroom and they had a Leica kit with lenses, and I taught myself photography there. I was a 2nd lieutenant and was with explosive ordnances. But New York already had a bomb squad, so I was not defusing any bombs,” he said with a laugh.
New York presented an opportunity. Through the USO, he was given tickets to shows and exhibits, exposing him to the art world’s arguable center of the universe. It was a universe that could well have opened its door for him but he had other callings. He returned to California for graduate school and then came to Florida.
“The weather here, the lush growth, the rivers, the foliage, really had a huge impact on my work,” he said. “Painting the sky here … it’s amazing. I’ve always been involved in my surroundings and I’m sure my work would have been totally different had I not moved here.”
And in Florida, when success came calling, with it came a fork in the road. He chose his family, he chose Florida over what could have been. He clearly has no regrets.
The first was a commission to create paintings for the Orlando International Airport. And then there was a cancer center in Houston. Others followed, some reading like a Who’s Who in the Fortune 500. In all, he has had at least 50 large commissions, providing him with means and an outlet for his incredible optimism and talent.
“I would always take those jobs,” he said. “We had three kids in college, we liked to travel. But doing these jobs meant that I was never able to go into big New York galleries. It was a question of where to concentrate — I concentrated on those commissioned pieces. I never got rich, but we were comfortable — but it was at the expense of trying to be on the national scene. That is very difficult to do from a distance. You have to go to New York or to Paris and become immersed in that scene. Once they have made their careers, then they can move to the countryside.”
Marsh chose the countryside from the beginning. He chose his family, he chose South Hillsborough. He states unequivocally that he is not a “national artist,” yet his work hangs on walls and is admired around the world.
He is humble about his art and his success — perhaps because it is as much a part of him as breathing. He paints from deep inside his heart but perhaps doesn’t appreciate the magnitude, the sheer size and talent of his heart. But he certainly knows his method, his drive to capture beauty where it may otherwise be missed.
“I’d like every square inch of the painting to be equally important as every other square inch. I give each the same amount of attention,” he said.
In one painting, a scene from Ruskin, Marsh painted an image that thousands of us drive through every day without much notice. But he sees the beauty; it is reflected in the light, the sky, the clouds, the passing cars and even some stray trash next to a curb. It is realism through the eyes and hands of a man with a good and caring heart. It is beauty that may be missed, but instead has been captured on canvas and provided permanence.
A panorama of the opening day of his exhibit at Allyn Gallup Gallery. Photo courtesy of Bruce Marsh.
Thirty-nine pieces of his work are on exhibit at the Allyn Gallup Gallery. When asked if it was difficult to let go of something that he so clearly poured heart and soul into, his response was immediate.
“I love knowing that they are out in the world because otherwise they would be in storage,” he said. “They don’t become invisible hanging on the wall. They stay alive. I hope that every day you can find something different in each painting.”
And indeed, the only way you can actually see his paintings is to experience them. To stand in front of them and let yourself get lost in the detail, in the shadows and in the light. And there is indeed always something new.
Besides, sometimes they come back to him.
“I painted that in 1967,” he said, pointing to a painting in his studio. “I got a call from a man saying that his father, who had purchased the painting, had passed away; he said his wife didn’t really like the painting and was wondering where he could sell it. I told him he could sell it to me.”
He is painting, as he has done for the past five decades. He finds glee in making images from pinhole cameras that he made himself. He finds challenges and joy in getting the warmth of a sliver of sunlight just right, or in making the stains on a sidewalk appear, as they should, as he sees it, in the shadow of a building. He gives of his time to help make art available to others, particularly in helping to put it into the hands of young people in South Hillsborough. He is a realist with a huge heart, revealing realism for the remarkable wonder that it really is — he captures life in all of its beauty.
It is beauty that is timeless, much like his paintings.
Much like Marsh himself.
Bruce Marsh’s exhibit will run through Dec. 31 at the Allyn Gallup Gallery, located at 1288 North Palm Avenue in Sarasota. Marsh and his wife, artist Dolores Coe, live and work in their Ruskin home and studio. Both Bruce and Dolores were instrumental in the foundation of the Firehouse Cultural Center in Ruskin and have volunteered countless hours toward its success. Marsh is a professor emeritus at the University of South Florida, where he taught for 34 years. His list of awards and distinctions, both from the private art world down to and including the State of Florida, is simply too long to list.
Only a week before the opening of his exhibit last month, gallery owner Allyn Gallup unexpectedly passed away. Gallup’s wife decided to continue with the gallery and Marsh’s exhibit, a legacy for her husband. It is something that Marsh described as bittersweet. Losing a friend is, of course, difficult, but his life’s work goes on with Marsh’s paintings, revealing the beauty of Ruskin, South Hillsborough and scenes from across America. Again, you have to stand in front of them to truly experience them.
For more information about the Allyn Gallup Gallery, visit www.allyngallup.com.
For more about Bruce Marsh, visit www.brucemarsh.net and brucemarsh.wordpress.com.
