Georgia artist David Boyd, Jr. says paintings of boats have a good chance of getting into his collection. So do pieces with personal connections.
Boyd will admit with a laugh that his piece by Roger Dale Brown was his second choice from the offerings available at a Brown workshop Boyd attended. His first choice was a river scene. But Boyd and his wife, Julie, have a rule that they have to agree on a painting to buy it, and Julie was not as fond of “that root painting,” as she put it. Boyd took it home to show his wife…and he brought it back the next day. “Roger’s wife, Beverly, said, ‘Believe me, I understand!'” recalls Boyd. “‘It’s a painter’s painting. What’s your second choice?’ I still want that root painting. I dream about it at night!” Boyd instead chose a boat piece. “I have this thing for boats,” he explains. “It was one of my first big pieces for our collection, so I’m particularly fond of it. His stuff is moody and atmospheric… somber. The pink of the light on the front of the boat is just so incredible. There’s lots of paint. He scraped a lot of paint out for the shadows and put a monstrous amount on the highlights!”
“May She Rest in Peace,” by Leon Holmes, 2014, oil, 12 x 24 in. Collection of David and Julie Boyd
Next, Boyd talked about a piece he got from Australian artist Leon Holmes. “He and I painted together two years ago at the Forgotten Coast event,” says Boyd. “I had never met him before, never even heard of him. Someone asked if I could give him a ride down from Atlanta to Florida. Normally I don’t like anybody riding with me to go anywhere. I don’t want to spend a lot of time with almost anybody. But my father has stories of his time in Australia, so I thought it might be fun. He and I went to a boat graveyard and we both painted this boat, a beautiful, old wooden shrimp boat tilted on its side. We were in heaven. We finished painting Miss Elaine at about 5 or 6 in the afternoon. The next morning when we came back we saw that they had bulldozed the boats. I was devastated. We walked around it, picking up some keepsakes. I came home with the nameplate from the boat. We both agreed that at the end of the event, if neither of our paintings of the boat sold, we would trade. This is 12″-x-24″, and in typically Leon fashion, it’s a beautiful piece, just electric. And this one has a pretty good pedigree, a good story to go along with it.”
Untitled, by Millie Gosch, 2015, oil, 8 x 10 in. Collection of David and Julie Boyd
“Rocks at Pemaquid,” by David Boyd, Jr., oil on linen, 12 x 24 in.
The last piece is by an artist who “singlehandedly changed my life by introducing me to plein air,” says Boyd. “Millie Gosch. This is not typically what she does. She is not just a floral painter. Millie never works from photos, but from plein air studies. I enjoy photos, but she wants the experience. She introduced me to painting, took me by the hand. I had never seen anybody paint before except Bob Ross on TV. To see somebody put paint on the palette and mix colors…it was the greatest day of my life. She organizes workshops in our community, and in general does so much for the arts here. This is probably going to be the first of many paintings by her that I get. I have so much respect for her and I’m so thankful for her. Nobody else here in this town speaks my language except her. She recognized me as being part of the tribe. She understands and respects my journey.”
