Warren Kimble Cheerleader for the Arts

Warren Kimble, Cheerleader for the Arts

by Joyce Marcel

Why do people love folk art?

 “Folk art is simplified,” said the ebullient contemporary folk artist Warren Kimble. “People understand it. They can see something they recognize. In my case, what I’ve found through the years, is that people of all walks of life, sophisticated, unsophisticated, see something in it and get something from it. It crosses gender lines. My prints are in hospitals, offices and dining rooms. You choose the folk art that suits you.”

 Since the Bennington Museum will open a show in June called “Grandma Moses and the ‘Primitive’ Tradition,” it seemed like a good opportunity to talk to Kimble about folk art in general and his life in particular.

 Kimble, 76, is internationally famous. His folk-style images of kissing cows, preening roosters, Vermont landscapes and American flags are licensed to appear on prints, note cards, pillows, plates, wallpaper, rugs and a host of other things.

 How did he become a folk artist?

 “Before I came to Vermont in 1970, I taught art in secondary schools,” Kimble said. “And I didn’t make any money teaching. So I was in the antique business, buying and selling folk art and old-style country furniture. And paintings.”

 Especially in England in the 1850s, farmers would feed their cows and pigs tremendous amounts of feed and then proudly have the huge beasts painted.

 “The animals got humongous,” Kimble said. “They had these little heads and huge bodies. Now I like fat cows. And I live where there are chickens and pigs and farm animals. So the first thing I did was a painting of a huge cow, thinking of the ones in England. And since it was me, I exaggerated it. So it became a folky art cow. So I was into the real folk art business and then I started doing contemporary folk art.”

 Might Grandma Moses be one of his early influences?

 “I remember drawing and painting like that when I was a little kid,” Kimble said. “With her figures. And it probably did influence me. When you’re that young, you’re innocent and you paint innocence. You paint right from the gut. Any child does. I think it’s wonderful that the museum is having a show of her work. I think it’s especially wonderful that they show her table, the one she worked from, with her implements her tools. That’s very important.”

 Art encompasses all experience, even childhood ones, Kimble said.

 “Everything you see influences you, whether you draw it or paint it or sculpt it,” he said. “So if I see Grandma Moses and her colors and the way she paints, it will influence me. And artists have art blocks, like writers have writer’s blocks. So I try and find the next thing that’s going to influence me. You can’t just sit in your studio and stare. You may not use it immediately. ‘Oh, I saw a tree so I’ll paint the tree. ‘It doesn’t always work that way. You see something today and you do it months or years from now. Art is the total of one’s experiences. And if you don’t have experiences, I don’t know how you create.”

 Once Kimble and his wife and business partner, Lorraine, became successful, they turned their attention to their hometown. Kimble laughingly admits that he is sometimes called the “benevolent dictator” of Brandon.

 That’s because he has used his success as an artist to help establish this small Vermont town as a place where a creative artist can happily live, work and sell in a supportive environment.

 “I’m an old cheerleader,” Kimble said. “Cheerleading is a creative spirit and a give back spirit. People in town say I have entirely too many ideas. That’s because of art and being entrepreneurial. But I get lots of help from lots of wonderful people who care about their environment and surroundings.”

 Brandon, Kimble said, was the first small town in America to use artist-decorated fiberglass statues as a fundraiser.

 What animal did they choose to do? Pigs.

“We did it on a shoestring,” Kimble said. “We raised $20,000, bought 40 fiberglass pigs, and had the artists paint them. Then we had a parade and showed them all around town all summer. Then we had an auction and made $160,000. With that money we bought the old 5&10 in town and made an artists guild. We started with about five, and now we have 49 artists.”

 From these beginning efforts, success followed. Galleries and good restaurants have opened in Brandon, artists have moved to town, and the Brandon Artists’ Guild now supports art scholarships at the high school, local elementary school art education, artists’ studios, potlucks and more clever fundraisers.

 After the pigs, Brandon did birdhouses, with the slogan, “Brandon is for the birds.” Then rocking chairs—“Brandon rocks!” Then boxes—“Brandon thinking out of the box.” Right now they’re doing clocks—“Art makes Brandon Tick.” Or maybe—“It’s hour time in Brandon.”

 Art helps support Brandon economically, Kimble said, especially when it is surrounded by big box stores in Middlebury and Rutland.

 “Having galleries and good eating places energizes the arts and brings people in,” Kimble said.

 Recently, the Kimbles began a new chapter in their life.

 “People don’t realize it, but art is work,” Kimble said. “Now I’m 76 years old. Everybody else my age is out playing golf, and I’m still producing paintings. Lorraine and I have a five-bedroom house which we love but which requires a lot of upkeep. We’re at the age when we don’t need that anymore. So do we go to one of those assisted living places where we would eat with old people everyday? A place with no salt in the food? They’re very fine places, and all my friends my age seem to be moving to these communities. We didn’t want to do that. We work with people from 20 to 60 or 70 or 80. And that’s what makes our lives interesting.”

 So the couple bought a vacant pharmacy building in downtown Brandon and began renovations.

 “It had wonderful bones,” Kimble said.

 They have already turned the ground floor into a studio and gallery.

 “And upstairs is a fabulous space,” Kimble said. “We’ve exposed some of the brick walls. There’s a fabulous tin ceiling and beautiful hardwood floors. We’ve put our house up for sale, and eventually we will sell it and move to the upstairs. It’s an ideal situation. We’ll be in the hub of activity for as long as we possibly can.”

 Kimble is happily enjoying the flow of activity in his new studio.

 “People come in and visit with no intention of buying things,” he said. “My friends come in, artists come in, local people come in who wouldn’t necessarily go to a gallery. If I’m working on something, I say, ‘Talk to my back.’ It’s been absolutely wonderful. Usually artists work in isolation. I’m set up here, it’s really fun.”