"I'm a biological Philadelphian but, identify as a Texan. My Ohio kin rode a covered wagon into Fort Worth (then into Denton), Texas, about 14 years after 15 Pennsylvania gentlemen volunteered and were killed at today's world renowned Alamo. Our patriarch's leather craftsman (Germanic) lineage began before 325 AD. Being prepared matters. Plans change.
Ergo, I have a youthful, creative, forward-thinking lifestyle.
And, I enjoy being #2, 'shorter' than #1, but wise."
- Carroll, an eagle in cowboy country
SERVICE-LEARNING & PASSION ARE Carroll's HABITS.
At the age of 3½ Carroll began collecting money to support two orphans. Around 2010, two city councilman independently calculated Carroll's charity to have been $21 million at the time. He'd slept on his studio floor, sofas, his water and electricity were shut off when he couldn't pay. Then, it was more sofas, no phone, he slept in his car, and a homeless shelter. It was a lightless dark tunnel! Carroll has transformed the pain of tragedy into ecstatic beauty using color on his heartbreaking journey that just might make you cry. After he won 1st and 2nd at a county art show he never exhibited again. American Watercolorist Magazine (Watercolor Magic) told 10s of thousands of artists and avid collectors living across America how he painted.
Carroll has been painting for practically thirty years.
Spaniard Don Fco. Alcaraz (an orphan) unlocked his artistic gift
and refused money. The event was so rare in the last 500 years
that Dallas Morning News ran multiple feature stories as soon as
Carroll returned. The Dallas Times Herald trumpeted the Spanish
artist's record-setting visit to Dallas, Texas way back in 1977.
Allen Rich and the City of Bonham continuously bless Carroll.
Carroll gave 525 talks in 9 months in the Lone Star State. Then,
doing pro bono photography at a fundraiser for military brides
and children, he met a Oklahoma Hall of Fame musician who
introduced Four-star General Tommy Franks to Carroll.
Umpteen INSIDER FACTS YOU NEED today:
(Examples of patrons at end of page)
- His representational paintings rarely show hard lines. He uses da Vinci's Sfumato method for realism.
- Carroll paints many, many, many planes of depth.
- Light shifts around Carroll's with galvanizing effect.
- He paints very quickly, often doing 1 painting daily.
- Complementary colors are the artist's vocabulary.
- Violets epitomize Carroll's expressive, vivid style.
- A cardiologist's painting had 60 transparent glazes.
- He often paints straight from tubes of costly pigment. Carroll does "washes with a bucket and a mop."
- Water quality affects performance in the field. Mixing emotive British and precision German paints causes unpredictable, irreproducible nuance. WATER sustains life. WATERCOLOR relies on it. Carroll sees the forest and small details on each tree. Ask about Alcaraz and green!
- WOMEN notice his hands - His fingers touch intimately.
- A RoughRiders painting had 10,000,000 views in 1 month. AND, Santa Fe, an art center and state capitol, paid Carroll to render a scene promoting its golf and city for an afternoon sales pitch in 84 hours. Publishers and editors love his story and his art! Frisco Style Magazine requested a baseball painting for 100,000 magazine covers, and sold 66 (Three cartons; ≈ $7000) of Carroll's Ode to Joy journals for $100 per book to help Frisco Rotary Club support local non-profits. One original Carroll went to the Waggoner Ranch in 1994. The bride of a HOF rodeo cowboy and Ring of Honor Dallas Cowboy helped launch Carroll's painting career. Notably, his 11th Grade Art Appreciation teacher, HOF Marine Brigadier General Woodrow Kessler (artist and author) first urged him to be an artist and took him to Dr. Barnes.' Army Major General, MIT civil engineer, Hugh Robinson, USMA, promoted Carroll to his fellow BELO board members and their holdings, and his lovely young GMT bride. Carroll black tied with 40 Medal of Honors and two Knights of Malta Commanders who dined with a four-star and his "West Point" lady.
- Carroll keynoted at: Southern Methodist University's chapter of American Association of University Women, University of Chicago Alumni Association, Trammel Crow, and Plano ISD.
"It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done." - Vincent van Gogh
- He is a veteran writer and designer of PRODUCT / SERVICE collateral for a broad-brush of clients.
- His favorite client was a civilian two-star at the Pentagon who reported to two US presidents and had 30,000 USAF scientists at Andrews AFB. #2 retired as the Sales and Marketing VP, Western Hemisphere for a huge NYSE oil and gas company. His favorite art patron was 2nd in command at the VA, then director of the National Cemetery System, appointments made by sitting US presidents.
- The #1 salesman in America's preeminent financial company (Highest Ratings) taught him to sell and cultivate superb centers of influence. Carroll was given annual meeting recognition for sales volume and client satisfaction company. Several medical, banking, and entrepreneurial clients cried when he left the life insurance business after 3½ years.
An Eccentric's Schooling: "The Fly-in Fly-out Way"
- He graduated from college with uncounted independent studies, literally flooded ALL of the Bio profs' offices, AND was short of the college's and the department's graduation requirements, but got As in Atmospheric Physics, Descriptive Oceanography, Ecology, and Paleontology. He got a science / engineering Sigma Xi research stipend, and summered on a multi-county National Science Foundation project.
- He dropped out of a Master's after taking all classes, finishing his Thesis - and failing his orals once - THEN, ON THE EXACT SAME DAY he quit a doctoral program in ecology at a different D1 several states to the north; His Master's studies were fully underwritten by an investor-owned statewide utility company. Carroll's doctoral Pine Barrens studies were conducted under a tenure-track Ivy League PhD.
- He was an Academy of Natural Sciences (ANSP) principal investigator specialized in indicator species on five large U.S. Environmental Impact Statements. The Editing Department and the Statistics Department polished his work. The Staff Library maintained his monthly reading habit of 800 scientific journals. Initially, artificial substrates were used to sample river benthic macroinvertebrates.
- THEN, he began a Central state's MBA marketing program with a perfect grade, THEN, another MBA mid-semester as #1 in calculus and accounting. He is the grandson of a Harrisburg banker and nephew of a Minneapolis business tycoon!
"It's not an artist I most admire, rather, GOATs: Kipchoge, Woods, MJ, Federer, Ronaldo, Montana, Bolt, Gretzky, .... The Babe."
- Carroll's #1 magazine was Scientific American when he was a 10 y/o grazing in gray-haired museums and research libraries. He liked the subheads and pictures!
- He began driving farm equipment 10 hours/day - As an 8y/o. He has a longstanding farm boy work ethic.
- He was bitten by the Photography Bug - As an 8 y/o.
- He was an avid philatelist (American postage) - As a 7 y/o.
- He was a farm pond ice skater, Little League Baseball fielder for the Senators and As since he was 5 and 6 y/o (pitcher as an 8y/o). He began playing tennis when knee high to a racket and played Varsity doubles in high school after wrestling JV five years. He belted in Kung Fu, was a lightning fast bicycle sprint specialist, but clocked a sleepy 4:08-mile, 8:56-2-miles, and 31:57-10K (Finished in 22nd as a 30 y/o runner; A college boy won with a 28:30; #11 ran 29:30.), ...
- He was given a compound microscope - He was five.
- He collected, spread, identified, labeled, and pinned insect specimens for his Riker mounts - He was five.
- His mom signed him up as a budding young scientist at ANSP, our oldest natural history museum - He was five.
- Carroll began drawing scientifically when he was 4½ y/o.
- His family stopped its station wagon for him to watch EVERY train. He studied passing landscapes from the top deck of a Vista-Dome - He was a Lionel railroader when he was four.
"Ya don't win a Pulitzer for painting something, all y'all.
OK. Maybe Fco. Goya's 1808 Third of May qualifies."
"The Brazilian Family, who co-founded Flamengo in 1895, arranged my art studies with in Spain, and GEN Tommy Franks, USA, (Ret.), who led a 25-country region, waived his world leader fee to pen the foreword to my first book, Ode to Joy, just because he wanted to help me. His personal introductions included POTUS XLIII. He was presented the President's Medal of Freedom at the White House, was knighted by HRH Queen Elizabeth, II, and was on the National Park Foundation board with David Rockefeller. Then, a numbers guy told me he was putting my 'Throw paint' cowboy painting beside the Picassos on his ranch. Why do geniuses love my 'wild hair' stuff?
I'm the direct descendent of the son of Etienne Burgund, Alsace-Lorraine. Our patriarch disembarked the Brig Lydia in Baltimore, MD in 1740. He resided beside Charles Carroll of Carrollton, my namesake. He was a luxury shoe maker ... I sold the purple thistle drawing that started it all for $100 to get it out of sight 'cause it hindered me. A whiz kid Telecom CEO's bride then bought three, an oil company president (we met at an inspirational seminar in Dallas, Texas) carried his new purchase down the hall to show his billionaire friend who quipped one of his Highland Park buddies just bought three, a golf Tour and US Open winner's mirthful bride called me a 6:15 AM to say that at that very moment her husband was rearranging their furniture around his painting, ... A Dallas multi-billionaire called to coach me. A French Country boulangerie founder suggested finishing touches for my first book, Ode to Joy (2013). AND, I'm from snowball land, Philly (1682), home of the Barnes. I moved to a wealthy market with gushers of loose change. Texas: It's unregulated, unbridled, and bucks noticeably. It's amazing what happens as soon as you just let go.
Carroll's 1st patron was a quarter horse lover from Argyle, Texas.
His Ohio bride ran into the arms of a cattleman around 2010 -
Her damning Jezebel spirit left with her! I repented.
Believe it or not, a happy, enduring marriage topped his life list
of personal desires. Husband and wife teams are paramount."
As the airline founder and attorney, Herb Kelleher STATED, "The greatest business decision I ever made ... was the move to Texas."