Tommy Thompson

Artist Tommy Thompson joined the army in 1969 when the Vietnam War was raging. He was stationed at Fort Jackson, fell in love with the area and, after a bit of moving around, returned for good.                  

He and his wife, Sharon, a Master Gardner, built their Chapin home on a large lot of land and converted its old fishing cabin into Tommy’s art studio (aka The Dog House.) A long, winding, gravel driveway leads to a hidden yard covered with variations of yellow, green and other brightly colored and textured plants. Elephant ears waft in the breeze to greet visitors, and patches of multi-colored flora bespeckle the property. The scene sets the tone of anticipation, light, beauty, and playfulness: a perfect harbinger for what is to come.

Unlike many artists, Tommy has several different ways to express himself. He works with watercolors, acrylics and collages, and he’s done woodworking and stained glass too. All are displayed throughout his brightly lit studio.

It’s immediately clear that Tommy is not some snooty artist who wants his work is to be pondered or debated oh-so seriously. A large red, green and yellow acrylic painting of 2 pears rests on an easel. It’s name: Pair.

Urban Renewal

Viewing a series called Urban Renewal, one sees the run down, desolate Metro South Station in NYC, with one, small, very green tree. “The tree is there to represent the renewal,” Tommy tells me with a smile. In Urban Renewal #2, there is a pristine home rising up from the darkest of gray ashes. When Tommy is having fun with a piece, he just keeps going with a series. In another Urban Renewal piece, the same dark, foreboding background is met with one beam of sunlight and a small patch of daisies.

“People are concerned about the environment and the way things are going and the trashing of our cities. This is my way of saying ‘There is hope.’”

Urban Renewal 2

An artist since the 5th grade, Tommy has always enjoyed the process of creating art. He focuses on the enjoyment of creating, not on the finished product. In fact, when he teaches watercolor classes for beginners at the Crooked Creek Art League, he regularly reminds students that the purpose of creating art is to have fun, not to finish with perfection. As a former Endodontist (a dentist who performs root canals) whose work, for years, was limited in scope to mere millimeters, he rejoices in the opportunity to relax, work on big canvases, and sometimes slop paint around.

In addition to his acrylics, Tommy also has quite a few collages. “Assem-blaah-ges,” he calls them jokingly. He likes the planning aspect of collages, and he also enjoys the 3rd dimension and the shadows that it creates. With collages, he plans a little and paints the background. Elements are then added: handmade, rolled paper, pieces of an old grandfather clock, military pins and metal odds and ends are fastened. For one assemblage, he took the page of an old engineering book and added clock gears and parts of a computer.

These days, Tommy is very excited about the 3 dimensional acrylics and collages. Acrylic paint offers colored pigments and different mediums that allow an artist to build on a canvas giving it a 3D effect slightly reminiscent of Claymation cartoons. One of his works, Triple Drop shows a white water rafting course in Kentucky with three drops. The leaves of the trees actually lift up off the canvas and beg the viewer to touch.

Textured medium creates a 3D effect in Triple Drop

Tommy wants people to be so drawn to his work that they reach out to touch it. He wants his work to have dimension, shadows, and have a body to it. For Tommy, it’s fun to “play” with the textured, mediums in paintings. What looks like white flowers speckling the bank of the river in Triple Drop are actually white medium sprinkled onto the canvas. This is his new direction, and he is relishing building 3D art.

It wasn’t always that way. Tommy spent much of his youth in rural, Shelby County Kentucky with relatives. In addition to acrylics, he uses watercolors to create scenic views of the barns of Shelby County. With so many cousins there to have fun with, he looks back on those days fondly, and this is one of the many reasons he enjoys creating work that is reminiscent of that time. In fact, the Christmas cards that he and his wife send each year are often a watercolor of a rural, Kentucky barn. Watercolors, he explains to me, are best kept small, simple and colorful.

Old Brewery

With 55 paintings completed, and new pieces always being produced, Tommy is ready to sell some of his work. For some inexplicable reason, he says, when it comes to commercial art people ages 30 to 50 tend to want big pieces of contemporary art on canvas––and all work should contain the color red. He is able to create that, while also creating what he loves. For Tommy, his art is playtime. He is happy to produce anything at all, but if people enjoy his work and want to purchase it, that’s even better.

He also loves teaching and he loves that his art has allowed him “to meet so many new, cool people.” The Japanese word ikigai loosely translates to that which keeps a person going. As an older person, Tommy recognizes and appreciates his artwork and sees it as his purpose. It keeps him going.

Time Passages #2

One of his favorite assemblages is called Time Passages. Tommy was invited to a jury selected show, Art Fields. (Jury selected means that artists must be chosen, and invited to attend.) Tommy got in and showed Time Passages #1. He sold it right away and has won numerous top level awards at juried shows throughout the years including Best in Show at the most recent Annual Crooked Creek Art League with Rift #3.

Rift #3

With so many reasons to be proud, the ever-modest and good-natured artist says he “stumbled along and got lucky in life.” He feels lucky to have found a home in Chapin, and lucky to have found joy in the creation of his art.

If someone couldn’t readily recognize Tommy’s ease and sense of humor in an ominous, gray painting with a tiny green tree being called Urban Renewal, s/he’d certainly see it in his choice of studio décor. With natural light pouring in through three sides of the space, mixed in with with his art there are signs like, “You’re only as good as your last painting,” and “In dog beers, I’ve only had one.” Some even offer art (and life) advice: “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” Along with his work, they collectively sum up Tommy’s attitude: Relax. Have fun. Enjoy life.

Tommy Thompson is an active member of and watercolor instructor at the Crooked Creek Art League. He earned signature status of the South Carolina Watercolor Society. In addition, he has been awarded signature status as a Nautilus Fellowship member in the International Society of Experimental Artists. You can see and purchase Tommy’s work at Palmetto Fine Arts in Chapin, by appointment at his studio, or online at tdthompsonart.com.

Tommy Thompson, having a blast in The Dog House