Artist Profile: pablo solomon

Name: pablo solomon
Location: Lampasas, Texas

Website:
pablo solomon

pablo solomon’s work is a beautiful celebration of the human form. If you are at work or would prefer not to see nudes, please take this into account. But you will be missing some wonderfully sublime works!

Photo credit: David Allio

pablo, how do you describe your work?
I am committed to the idea a happy life results from what Aristotle described a balance of health, wealth, friendship, virtue and knowledge. I try to promote the beauty of balance. I believe that the human form is the best representation of the beauty of the unification of form and function.

What is your creative process like?
I do what I feel like at the time–unless I have a specific commission. I compare my creative process to surfing–I ride the wave of creativity as opposed to fighting it. I have an almost perfect visual memory, things just pop in my head and I try to find whatever it is that I feel I need at that time. I am always drawing. Again, anything that pops in my mind. Sometimes I develop drawings into plans or make refinements, othertimes I just draw the next thought.

I like jazz or symphonic music to keep me focused. However, when I am hammering rock, I like talk radio. Current events always have something to get my blood pumping. I work like a maniac. I get up everyday at 4 a.m. and try to work into the night (minus an afternoon nap). People often think that I have patience–far from it—I have tenacity–I have this drive to create and to turn my ideas into reality.

What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?
The best training I have had is travel. I have seen the world’s greatest art. Next is life experience. I have worked many interesting jobs which gave me knowledge of industrial materials and processes. The best way to improve is to work and evaluate the results–day in, day out.

My move to professional artist was the result of a lifetime of developing and pushing my art until I was making enough money at it to do it full time. I was an artist as a child and sold my first work as a young teen.

Photo credit: Deborah Crombie

Is there a tool or material that you can’t imagine living without?
My hands.

What inspires you to create?
My wife Beverly. She has one of the best figures God ever gave a woman. She keeps in shape with yoga and did ballet when younger. She was a model and then worked in sales and marketing for Diane von Furstenberg, Revlon and Ralph Lauren. Probably 80% of my figure work represents her.

What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?
The thought of the tough lives my parents had. My mother was a sharecropper who grew up on a Texas farm with no electricity or running water. They plowed with mules, picked cotton and sewed their own clothers. When she was 12, her mother died and she had to raise 6 siblings. My dad’s family was run out of several countries before finding freedom and opportunity in the US. He was much smarter and skilled than I will ever be. He spoke 5 languages. Yet because he had no opportunity for formal education, he worked hard his entire life. So, when the going gets “tough”, I just think how much more blessed and how relatively easy my life has been. I owe it to my parents to be a success.

What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?
Put the first line on the paper–the second will soon follow.
Good art is more the result of hard work than deep thought.
Spend more time working with your art than talking with other artists.

What takes up the majority of your time besides your art?
Maintaining our historic ranch. Always something.

What’s your favorite comfort food?
My aunt was the best Mediterranean cook in the US (according to me and cooking magazines). My wife and I sometimes try to recreate the recipes she left us. I also like hiking the beautiful Texas Hill Country looking for arrowheads. My wife and I love to travel–especially to beaches and to historic sites.

Photo credit: Timb Hamilton

Other photos by pablo solomon