Berton Bulles

“I started drawing in grade school, but I drew other peoples’ stuff from books and magazines.  My art teacher said “Bert – draw your own life”.  In high school my teacher was trained at Pratt and gave us all the basic fundamentals.  In high school I was into sculpture bias relief.  It was a WPA high school and had bias relief sculptures in concrete on the front of the building.  I ended up carving cameos in piano keys I salvaged from junk pianos.  My art teacher didn’t want me to go to art school, he said I was too lazy.

I went to college to become a history teacher, but flunked out in my senior year when I was using drugs every day.  I was drafted and went into the navy.  I got clean and sober in 1972 at a community rehab in Sullivan County based on the 12 steps.  I stayed in that community for many years and then moved to Rhode Island and Maine.  The light in Maine was extraordinary and I started drawing in pencil on Bristal.  I moved from that to pastel on paper, then to using a sanded surface.

In my studies for spiritual development, I read the Enneads of Plotinus and Divine Names by Dionysius and the Areopagite on Beauty.  This is the basis of my art.  I consider my work to be Modern Realism.  But my work is as much how a scene feels, as how it looks.  My subjects come from Wayne and Sullivan Counties.

(to contact Berton, please leave a message at waynecountyartsalliance@gmail.com)