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Top of the class

Painting from life

Highwaymen artist Sylvester Wells teaches students about art and about the art of living.

By PAULETTE LASH RITCHIE
Published April 21, 2005

CITRUS SPRINGS - The quiet, darkly clothed man, with graying bread, was in sharp contrast to the display of color that surrounded him. Sylvester Wells stood among the brilliant paintings he had done as he greeted Citrus Springs Middle School classes that entered the art room to see him.

Wells, 67, was at the school at the invitation of art teacher Diana Baize. She and exceptional student education teacher Amy Simerly had taken their students on a field trip to the Historic Courthouse to see the Highwaymen exhibit. They considered how it would benefit their students if they could get one of the famed artists to come to the school. Wells agreed.

He and his wife, Clezella, who assists him, talked with one class after another, while the students watched Wells in action, creating art before their eyes, on a canvas in an explosion of color. As he worked, the students were encouraged to ask him questions.

"What is your favorite environment to draw?"

"Wherever I'm at."

"Do you often do portraits of people?"

"When I'm asked."

"Have you read The Da Vinci Code?"

"No."

When the students weren't asking questions, Wells was giving gentle life lessons.

"If you can draw, you can paint."

"Skills we have should be developed."

Subjects like math and language arts "will assist you in the talents you have."

Wells was born in and grew up in Jacksonville. He seriously began to paint for money while in the U.S. Army in the mid 1960s. "It was a good supplement to my income," he said.

Now he and his wife have a general delivery address in Buena Vista, Tenn., and do a significant amount of traveling to satisfy his primary calling. "My love and business is serving God," the artist-preacher said. "I love doing this because I'm illustrating God's creation."

Baize said she hoped Wells could impress her students with the reality of art as a viable career option. She likened her students and Wells to a child who can't believe his parent knows anything as opposed to some other authority figure.

"They won't listen to you, but they'll listen to the coach sort of thing," she said. "I want them to see a professional artist working and see how they can get into it."

Apparently, the lessons by Wells were heard.

Trinity Paini, 14, while enjoying all the colors, said she agreed with what Wells had to say about studying core subjects like math and language arts. These kinds of things, he told them, can help students in almost any field they choose. "I think it's amazing," Trinity said.

Classmate Olivia Moeschet, 13, liked watching Wells in action.

Early in the painting on which he was working, she said, "I got some pretty good, vibrant images of what the painting would be." Calling herself a poet, Olivia said she doesn't know too much about art but said, "I learned how to mesh colors to turn them into something beautiful."

[Last modified April 21, 2005, 18:28:41]