"Visiting Duo" in Nashville

A reporter caught up with us when we were passing through

Here, in its entirety, is the article by Lia Nower that The Tennessean published about me and Thomas Kinkade when we came through Nashville on our cross-country sketching adventure in October, 1980.

VISITING DUO SKETCHES FACES, PLACES

They sleep in fern beds, box cars and graveyards, and over the weekend they rested in a Nashville boat yard.

In the morning, they don their backpacks. pick up their sketch pads and follow their instincts to the next town where they will sell a few drawings and jot down more anecdotes in their notebooks.

"About six months ago, we half formulated the idea of a series of trips which evolved into a lifestyle we call 'hoisting' — a made-up word for a combination of drawing and traveling." said Tom Kinkade, 22, a western artist.

KINKADE AND HIS PARTNER, Jim Gurney, also 22, stopped in Nashville as part of a six-week "hoist" around the country. With $500 each in traveler's checks, the pair hopped a freight train two weeks ago and traveled from California to Yuma, Ariz. There, they recreated houses and faces on paper.

"We sketch a house and then knock on the door and ask the resident if they want to buy the picture for $7.50. We never have problem — everyone takes it." said Kinkade. "We also draw portraits in bars and sell them for $2.00. In Yuma, we made $250 in two nights for four hours work a night."

Kinkade and Gurney met at Berkeley, Calif., where they were roommates and later attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Gurney, who graduated from the University of California Berkeley with a degree in anthropology, is presently at the Art Center and plans to work for Walt Disney, Productions as an animation artist.

THE HOISTERS. who explained they are also writers and costumists, said they carry concealed tape recorders and record reactions to their sketches for a future book which will be an illustrated travelogue made up of a series of short stories. The book will portray the uncomplicated life in America as depicted by their heroes, Mark Twain, Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney, whose "imagination and creativity have uplifted the spirit of the American people."

"We have four more weeks of travel and then: it's back to California where I have to produce x-number of pictures for my gallery," Kinkade said. "Jim has four months before he goes back to school, so were going to work on the book, hoping to approach a publisher in 1981."

Gurney said that, in addition to the book, the two hope to float down the Mississippi to New Orleans on a homemade raft that is presently sitting in Kinkade's mother's backyard.

"MY GOAL is to live with a coal miner in Pennsylvania or West Virginia," Kinkade added. The pair, wearing grey shirts with American flag patches on them, said they have found kindness and dedication in the people they have met in their travels. In Yuma, they said, they were befriended by a survivor of Pearl Harbor who took them in for their two-day stay."We also met an old Indian who had known Albert Einstein, and he had loads of stories for us," Gurney said.

"Just a few minutes ago we met a guy here in Nashville who is a descendant of Dillinger [a notorious crime figure of the 1930s], and he asked us if we knew where he could buy a submachine gun." Kinkade said his painting pays well, but he has a sense of duty about money and intends to use his funds to purchase 100 acres in Southern Missouri for an art school.

"I WANT TO do something that will help other artists and I am going to build the Ozark Mountain Christian Academy," he said. "There are no building codes in southern Missouri, so I'm going to buy property for a summer retreat for Christian artists."

Gurney added that his money will go for contributions to wildlife funds and to finance traveling and safaris where he can make wilderness drawings.

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The whole story is in the brand new edition of the 1982 book The Artist’s Guide to Sketching.

The Artist’s Guide to Sketching was one of the first art books I bought, and it showed how sketching could be fun rather than intimidating. The book laid a strong foundation for future art projects by making a difficult skill enjoyable and deepening my understanding of art’s core principles, accelerating my artistic growth. More than a guide, the guide instilled a habit of seeing, reinforcing my instinct that the best way to learn is through joyful, consistent practice. With the new edition, this classic returns with even more color and insights.”

—Brad Teare, landscape painter