CARROLL, aka The Paintbrush Poet™
and The King's Painter™
"In so many ways I'm just a storyteller.
I am analytical, systematic, and intuitive,
YET decisive and lightning fast as I act.
My art compositions memorably portray exciting, live action details up close.
I observe everything as a scientist does,
from many angles simultaneously,
and season it with just the right words.
I enjoy rare, complex abstract problems,
requiring rapid analysis and innovation.
Pop taught me to run down and catch
most anything but a Cove splasher.
My art breaks the glass ceiling and, I ask,
What is the purpose of this artwork?"
∞ ∞ ∞
- "Pop only allowed the best of the best of the very best on his payroll. They were elite performers who loved their work, AND were not egotistical, self-promoters, or carnival barkers, or pimps. They spoke about their roots, loved their teammates, and like Medal of Honors, were humble and had no quit in them. Selling wasn't a priority. For my dad, life was an active battlefield where hesitation or excuse was unacceptable. He demanded the correct solution the first time - PERIOD. Pop was a stellar student, 53s 440 yard guy in 1930-31, and front page running back. His keen professorial tutelage and care sought worldwide. C-PTSD fueled his explosive contumely and poverty of self-image, worsened by the death of his first child - The canvas of my Ice 9 jigsaw puzzle that was to be done quickly and correctly the first time. Right!?!"
- So RARE in the last 500 years that Dallas Morning News ran features as soon as Carroll returned. Dallas Times Herald reported Sr. Alcaraz' visit to Texas back in 1977 --- The child prodigy, was hired by The Prado, the Louvre, and New York City's Met to carve frames for their exhibits. While Carroll was studying painting with Sr. Alcaraz in 1994, Alcaraz carved and gold-leafed frames for two of Carroll's watercolors.
- "I'm SEARCHING FOR the right buyer for THE KING'S BLING™ paintings and drawings (My private stash), e.g., The River of Life, A Red Sea Moment, Red and Yellow Bulls-eyes, We the Peeble, The Day the Dollar Died, The Remnant, Royal DNA, It's Elementary, Star Struck, Dave before Dawn, Upper Reaches, More than a Club, Set in Stone, #1,- #6, Following the Cloud, Perfectly Loved, #8, Memorial, Taproot, Warning, ... TOTALING 38 artworks. Variety of styles, shapes, and sizes. YOU could enjoy THE KING'S BLING™ as Dr. Barnes did - In his home: PICASSO, Matisse, Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Modigliani, Renoir, Gauguin, Monet, Rubens, El Greco, Goya, Cassatt, ... AND many drawings, e.g., Chagall's Nude" where Carroll saw them firsthand.
- IMAGINE tradeshow posters, note cards, coffee mugs, ... Host an art talk by the artist at a get together with friends. Own the most prestigious collection and bragging rights. "My biggest collector got 40 originals 4 years after I was in Spain, framed them, redecorated three rooms around them, and invited her friends and best client to a 'grand opening' of her treasures, including the full set of Carroll's 22"x30" Olympic Gold figure skaters. I wonder what they're worth today?"
- ★★★★ TESTIMONIALS. a) SM The King of Spain Juan Carlos I conveyed his delight with Carroll's paintings of his country. HRH's letter came through the Spanish Embassy in Wash., D.C. with the Ambassador's courtesy translation and cover letter. b) Gen Tommy Franks, USA, Ret., waived his world leader's fee to pen the foreword to Carroll's book, Ode to Joy, because he wanted to help. Jimmy Jack Whitaker introduced Franks. The Pentagon's fmr USCENTCOM commander (Presidential Medal of Freedom, Knighted by Queen Elizabeth), overseeing a 25- country-region, remarked that OTJ should be in every active duty, veteran, and family member's hands. "My painting of General Franks is on display in his Leadership Institute." The Hall of Fame guitarist's brother had been a war casualty.
- The Knights of Malta. With 40 Medal of Honors in black ties, the Knight Commander of a priory offered membership in his cadre of presidents and kings from the Western Hemisphere and Europe. "Westy" had invited Carroll to his 50th wedding anniversary where he supped with real heroes.
"WHY DID I DO IT?"
Carroll's peripatetic quest and whole art thing began because his sister died and he had to make sense of it ---
"I KNOW the confine of C-PTSD. Overcoming it was challenging.
My cage door opened - I flew out and helped others, too. My wife left, my water and electricity were shut off, I couch-surfed, slept in my car, and a homeless shelter - 'A few bumps and bruises.'
As John Paul Jones said, 'Nail the colors to the mast.' "
"At 4½ y/o I began drawing. I'd decided to be the best I could be.
Forty-nine years later, I realized making art helped me understand my dad's likely C-PTSD, the sudden death of my older sister at her age six, my mom's horrendous dad's death when she was 10, her Dakota Dust Bowl and NY Stock Market Crash childhood traumas, and my choices in a nutty, intellectual home. I was told I'm a miracle. Hardly. I've been at this since I was newborn and painted my crib!
I started composing full-frame photographs three years later, in 1958.
in the Black Hills and South Dakota Badlands. I shot landscapes and
botanicals everywhere, and movers and shakers like Dallas City Manager, Mary Suhm, #12 Roger Staubach, and bank chairman Gary Base for Dallas Business Journal, plus pages of community events and sports (football, basketball, baseball, track and field) for American Community Newspapers, etc., and oodles of private clients. An Economic Development Corporation #2 kept pointing me to major news events in her 84,000-member community. Ready to run.
Camera in hand, I never hear the dinner bell ring!
Road bike in hand, point me to curvy roads and mountain passes
on a warm sunny day, a heavy downpour, ... and I'll be joyful.
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My GVSD 7th-Grade Art teacher, Miss Kathie Dugas,
taught me to draw fingers and hands much better than most.
LOOK - my dexterous fingers will make you gasp!"
PERSONAL CONFESSIONS
- "I never wanted to be an artist, let alone a painter. One thing led to another and I became an artist in life. A résumé would showcase the fact. By faith I act with accountability. I'm no gambler and mitigate risks. I'm more sure-footed than the Rocky Mountain goat, Oreamnos americanus."
- "Most artists hate to paint in watercolor because it requires a different way of thinking without the slightest mistake. Everyone's EYES are different - They're the window to the soul. I save them for dessert because they always complete or ruin my painting - EYES top it off, like bouldering and lead, doing the most difficult last. BUT, THAT'S NOT ENOUGH - Sr. Alcaraz taught me to take what I'd made pretty and transform it into beautiful ---- Expressively, surefootedly, and very consistently. I like being an advocate and mentor, given my rich variety of experiences and mentoring! And, no I do not teach art, or give art lessons, lectures, or do art workshops. BUT, I do cherry pick who I'll assist with attaining his/her goals; When no longer coachable, I move along without attachment."
- "I used art to try on many different hats to figure out who I am. That swallowed my silver spoon and a lot more. I wonder how I could get an art degree, exhibition, and publication out of this somehow. I'm 70+, now." Carroll's favorite movies? Facing the Giants (2006), Courageous (2011), Fireproof (2008), Flywheel (2006), Miracle (2004), Invincible (2006), Serendipity (2001), Finding Forrester (2000), October Sky (1999).
- "Mom was a pediatrician, guest editor, ΦΒΚ Poli Sci major, and the youngest daughter of a South Dakota family doctor and a librarian. Pop was a dermatologist, professor, hospital director, Navy veteran, and the son of a Pennsylvania banker. A Kiwi Olympic Gold was first headmaster at their equestrian center. I am second of nine offspring and began working at 5¢ an hour on the farm, then did freshwater insect IDs for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia as a college undergrad in MN. I was driving a big red Farmall Super H as a 55 lbs. eight-year-old, stacked 80lb. square bales 12-high on a wooden flatbed w/o a rack, mucked 30 stalls with a 10-Tine, cleaned schoolie tack, reset split rail fence on rocky hillsides, built XC jumps for Grand Prix 3-Day Eventing, shoveled a 1/4 mi. snow driveway, tended a big garden, pointed flagstone, edged flower beds, scraped and painted a 3-story historic building Williamsburg Sage atop a 40' ladder, cleared hedgerows, split firewood, ... And grew up skating on farm ponds. I'm a farm boy used to 100-hour work weeks. I faced the giants and wholly live with purpose. 'Row, row, row your boat ... ' OK, but I wrestled in Jr. and Sr. HS, canoed flood-stage Class 3 rapids, raced sprints on 43° banked tracks, was a LL baseball pitcher, wreck dove the Continental Shelf, was a martial artist and did combat speed throws on a bare fieldhouse floor (So we wouldn't fear doing the real thing), gave 750 public talks and was live on TV ... I led Rotary Club 1841's road trash cleanup for three years and set the world #1 Toastmaster district's record for one year in the last six-months of a vacant chairmanship; They voted me a Lt. Governor, then, made me D-25 Treasurer; My 'boss' became a HOF International President. WHEN no one wanted hard duty I volunteered. The 41st President of the United States of America noticed my activity and sent me a salutary letter! ---
- My dad loved his trees and spit fire if anyone threatened them. He loved teaching in the medical school. Mom was a horse-lover, a staunch naturalist, and a contrarian from a small town. Me? Mark Twain wrote that if you tried to carry a cat by the tail you'd never forget the experience (I'm cuddly in the right hands). Some say I'm as combative as a busload of lawyers."
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"The mountains are calling and I must go."
John Muir, "Father of the National Parks" himself, "an irregular gent,"
naturalist (botanist, zoologist, geologist), author, preservationist
"Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away;
and if they could, they would still be destroyed -
chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could
be got out of their bark hides, branching horns,
or magnificent bole backbones."
Ibid.
Between every two pine trees there is a door
leading to a new way of life."
Ibid.
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"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such a twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of darkness."
William O. Douglas, JD Yale Law School, LLB Columbia Law School,
BA Whitman College ΦΒΚ, English and Economics,
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,
3rd Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
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"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me Truth."
H.D. Thoreau, Walden, naturalist, essayist, poet,
Harvard graduate Harvard's 1636 motto: VERITAS ("Truth")
"Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.
What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself
to the wrong which I condemn."
Ibid.
"I am grateful for what I am and have.
My thanksgiving is perpetual."
Ibid.