Homegrown Artist

William C. Houston

1005 W. Old A.J. Highway

New Market, TN 37820

Studio: 865.475.3286

WilliamCHouston@hotmail.com

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Homegrown Artist
Bill Houston’s paintings have earned him national recognition.

BY STEVE MARION
Standard Banner Staff Writer

Self portrait in landscape
Painter Bill Houston works on a large landscape in oil. Houston, of New Market, recently switched to large oil canvasses after years of watercolors. He said it took him years of work and consideration to realize that his landscapes were actually metaphorical self portraits. (Photo - Steve Marion)

Some Jefferson Countians have a name for a certain kind of everything.

You’ve seen the kind. They come most often between the seasons, when fall is turning into winter or winter into spring, and the weather might be changing too, either clearing off from the west or clouding up. Whatever the reason, there is a moment of transparency. At dusk the sunset turns all colors of red and orange and purple, and the bare trees are like black cracks in the sunset, and every little pond and puddle gives back the light of the sky. Above all the color, where the purple turns to black, the evening star is out.

Those evenings, people say, are like a Bill Houston painting.

That’s because over nearly 30 years and hundreds of paintings, Houston has laid claim to that moment of transparency. Looking at a painting, you’ll swear you once saw exactly that darkening ridge, and exactly that pasture with those little dark flametips of cedars, and exactly that marsh. You’ve seen the light when it slanted in just like that.

But, Houston says, actually you haven’t.

“People are always telling me they know the place I did the painting of,” Houston said. “Or they’ll ask, ‘Now exactly where is that? I know I’ve been there before.’ But I can’t tell them, because the place doesn’t exist. I made it up.”

Not only do the places that seem so familiar in Houston’s work not exist, but his landscape paintings also are not landscapes. At least not just landscapes. Houston says it took him years of painting and years of exploring the questions surrounding it to realize they are actually self-portraits without faces self-portraits in which the physical self is curiously absent.

“It took me a long time to realize that my paintings are totally symbolic,” Houston said. “They’re a record of my consciousness of myself within the world.”

Houston’s talent was recognized before he even went to college at Carson-Newman, where he now teaches. His watercolors have received national recognition, one was recently purchased by the state museum, and the originals bring expensive prices. Until recently, most of his work sold through galleries in Atlanta and Washington, D. C. He drives to campus in a platinum Mercedes-Benz.

Though he turns 50 this year, Houston is unflaggingly boyish. A couple of weeks ago some of the teachers at Carson-Newman located an enormous bronze medallion that had apparently been forgotten inside the art building, and Houston took it around asking if everyone had seen the new $50 coin.

“But I can’t get the coke machine to take it,” he said.

For a visual artist, Houston is surprisingly verbal. He’ll talk you ear off, and surprise you with the breadth and depth of his knowledge. However, he has trouble balancing a checkbook, and his lack of ability with figures kept him form becoming an architect. The absolute meticulousness of his paintings spreads over to other things in his life too. Houston loves tools and wood- working, makes his own furniture in a style he calls “hedonistic Shaker,” and has a predilection for finely made things, whether furniture or wristwatches or the specials at By the Tracks Bistro.

Houston’s father, who died when the artist was only 13, attended art school himself, but the Depression brought him back to New Market, where his father ran a general store and sold a locally famous mineral water. For a while, Houston’s dad drew sports and other cartoons for the Knoxville News Sentinel, and after World War II he settled in his hometown, operated the store, and worked as a mailman, a job he dearly loved.

From the time he was a boy Houston loved science. He also loved to draw, but the closest he could come to an art class at the local high school was mechanical drawing. After his father’s death, Houston found himself with what he describes as a “dark attitude” of not knowing or caring what he did with his life. At Carson-Newman he couldn’t decide on a major, but working with his old Boy Scout troop increased his spirits.

“They took an interest in me and doors began to open,” he recalled. “Somebody suggested I study art, and that was something I entertained, but didn’t count on too much.”

People like educators Eugene Peck and Earl Cleveland, along with friends such as Robert Miller and Henry and Adrian Blanc recognized Houston’s artistic ability early on, and at C-N he began taking art classes.

“In the first few days of art class, I realized there was no turning back,” Houston said. “I had found for the first time something in school I really liked. For the first time in my life, school didn’t feel like some big hurdle to get through.”

Plus, it was the 1960’s. Everybody was doing dangerous things. Everything seemed to point to a career in art for Houston, but nobody told him how difficult it would be. For years after college and after he began his teaching career, he lived on a small salary and made do so that he could stay up most of the night and work on his paintings, which became more and more stunning.

“I have to give my parents a lot of credit,” Houston said. “They were incredibly merciful to me. It was hard after my dad died, and my mom was very supportive.”
For Houston, making paintings is a lot easier than selling them. “I make something that no one needs, but hopefully that they want. It felt strange to me at first to sell them.”

As time went on, Houston became a painter of the edges, the boundaries. His landscapes frequently show the East Tennessee terrain at dusk, the sky a thermonuclear explosion of glowing color, the land dark, but the top of the sky even darker. What Joseph Conrad described in Heart of Darkness as “the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention” is very much in evidence. Houston’s strongest attachment is to the Nineteenth Century Hudson River School of painters, who favored sweeping panoramas of rivers, hills, and mountains, all set in a golden light nature as it was before man. Houston, however, is darker than them. His paintings suggest creation or destruction or both, the moment of “in-between” in which one can sense the coldness of space and the warmth of the earth.

Houston has remained tied to East Tennessee. He says he’s a product of it, and its temperaments and moods suit him. But he also likes Maine, his mother’s home state, and a place where he spent summers in his youth, exposed to paintings by Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer in the town museums.

A few years ago, he completely renovated his father and grandfather’s old general store in New Market. He turned the inside into living and working quarters, with a big studio downstairs, as well as a woodworking shop. From the outside the old store looks much as it always has. The inside is filled with furniture Houston has made himself, and artwork by his friends.

“Each piece of art suggests a whole friendship to me,” he said.

Lately, he has found himself starting his artistic life over. He’s making the switch from watercolor to oil, and to much larger canvasses six, even seven feet wide. Watercolor won’t forgive an artist’s mistakes, but oil is forgiving the painter can paint layer after layer until he has it right.

And exactly what is right?

Houston’s easel, which he made himself of walnut, bird’s eye maple, and other woods, is inscribed at the top with a line from a Les McCann jazz piece: “Trying to Make it Real Compared to What?”

“When I first heard that piece, I thought it was so dynamic. It just hit me. You know, people are always saying that this or that piece of art is so real, so much like the real thing. But what is real? What isn’t?”

Houston believes his work revolves around the anthropic principle, which holds that the universe requires human consciousness to validate its own existence. Mind is made of the same particles as rocks and trees, so consciousness is in effect matter reflecting on its own being.

“That means that really my work is a mirror of matter reflecting on its own existence,” Houston said. “I believe that our consciousness is somehow or other tied into the universe.”

Maybe that’s why his paintings ring with the feeling of creation, what he calls the “spiritual shock of seeing things.”

Writer Alan Watts describes something similar: “We must see that consciousness is neither an isolated soul nor the mere function of a single nervous system, but that totality of interrelated stars and galaxies which makes a nervous system possible.

Lately, Houston has been working on (surprise) a large canvas of a windy spring day, filled with clouds backlit by a strong sun. It’s driving him crazy. He keeps wheeling his chair back ten or fifteen feet to look at it, and he’s happy with the clouds and sky, but not the ridges. The painting is already sold and it was promised months ago, but he can’t let it go. Jazz is blaring from the speakers on the wall. The color of one field, he says, is wrong. Completely wrong, and he mutters something about the curse of perfectionism. Outside it’s gloomy, beginning to rain. Driving by on Old Andrew Johnson Highway you can see the light inside the studio, and from a distance it looks as if Houston isn’t painting. It looks instead as if he is cleaning a window, a large rectangular window through which the light comes more and more forcefully as he cleans.

Used by permission from the author.
Originally published in “Community 2001” by the Standard Banner, Jefferson City, TN.
Thursday, March 15, 2001

William C. Houston
1005 W. Old A.J. Highway New Market, TN 37820 Studio: 865.475.3286 WilliamCHouston@hotmail.com Homepage Portfolio Brief Biography Professional Activities/ Exhibitions/ Awards		Homegrown Artist Bill Houston’s paintings have earned him national recognition. BY STEVE MARION Standard Banner Staff Writer Self portrait in landscape Painter Bill Houston works on a large landscape in oil. Houston, of New Market, recently switched to large oil canvasses after years of watercolors. He said it took him years of work and consideration to realize that his landscapes were actually metaphorical self portraits. (Photo - Steve Marion) Some Jefferson Countians have a name for a certain kind of everything. You’ve seen the kind. They come most often between the seasons, when fall is turning into winter or winter into spring, and the weather might be changing too, either clearing off from the west or clouding up. Whatever the reason, there is a moment of transparency. At dusk the sunset turns all colors of red and orange and purple, and the bare trees are like black cracks in the sunset, and every little pond and puddle gives back the light of the sky. Above all the color, where the purple turns to black, the evening star is out. Those evenings, people say, are like a Bill Houston painting. That’s because over nearly 30 years and hundreds of paintings, Houston has laid claim to that moment of transparency. Looking at a painting, you’ll swear you once saw exactly that darkening ridge, and exactly that pasture with those little dark flametips of cedars, and exactly that marsh. You’ve seen the light when it slanted in just like that. But, Houston says, actually you haven’t. “People are always telling me they know the place I did the painting of,” Houston said. “Or they’ll ask, ‘Now exactly where is that? I know I’ve been there before.’ But I can’t tell them, because the place doesn’t exist. I made it up.” Not only do the places that seem so familiar in Houston’s work not exist, but his landscape paintings also are not landscapes. At least not just landscapes. Houston says it took him years of painting and years of exploring the questions surrounding it to realize they are actually self-portraits without faces self-portraits in which the physical self is curiously absent. “It took me a long time to realize that my paintings are totally symbolic,” Houston said. “They’re a record of my consciousness of myself within the world.” Houston’s talent was recognized before he even went to college at Carson-Newman, where he now teaches. His watercolors have received national recognition, one was recently purchased by the state museum, and the originals bring expensive prices. Until recently, most of his work sold through galleries in Atlanta and Washington, D. C. He drives to campus in a platinum Mercedes-Benz. Though he turns 50 this year, Houston is unflaggingly boyish. A couple of weeks ago some of the teachers at Carson-Newman located an enormous bronze medallion that had apparently been forgotten inside the art building, and Houston took it around asking if everyone had seen the new $50 coin. “But I can’t get the coke machine to take it,” he said. For a visual artist, Houston is surprisingly verbal. He’ll talk you ear off, and surprise you with the breadth and depth of his knowledge. However, he has trouble balancing a checkbook, and his lack of ability with figures kept him form becoming an architect. The absolute meticulousness of his paintings spreads over to other things in his life too. Houston loves tools and wood- working, makes his own furniture in a style he calls “hedonistic Shaker,” and has a predilection for finely made things, whether furniture or wristwatches or the specials at By the Tracks Bistro. Houston’s father, who died when the artist was only 13, attended art school himself, but the Depression brought him back to New Market, where his father ran a general store and sold a locally famous mineral water. For a while, Houston’s dad drew sports and other cartoons for the Knoxville News Sentinel, and after World War II he settled in his hometown, operated the store, and worked as a mailman, a job he dearly loved. From the time he was a boy Houston loved science. He also loved to draw, but the closest he could come to an art class at the local high school was mechanical drawing. After his father’s death, Houston found himself with what he describes as a “dark attitude” of not knowing or caring what he did with his life. At Carson-Newman he couldn’t decide on a major, but working with his old Boy Scout troop increased his spirits. “They took an interest in me and doors began to open,” he recalled. “Somebody suggested I study art, and that was something I entertained, but didn’t count on too much.” People like educators Eugene Peck and Earl Cleveland, along with friends such as Robert Miller and Henry and Adrian Blanc recognized Houston’s artistic ability early on, and at C-N he began taking art classes. “In the first few days of art class, I realized there was no turning back,” Houston said. “I had found for the first time something in school I really liked. For the first time in my life, school didn’t feel like some big hurdle to get through.” Plus, it was the 1960’s. Everybody was doing dangerous things. Everything seemed to point to a career in art for Houston, but nobody told him how difficult it would be. For years after college and after he began his teaching career, he lived on a small salary and made do so that he could stay up most of the night and work on his paintings, which became more and more stunning. “I have to give my parents a lot of credit,” Houston said. “They were incredibly merciful to me. It was hard after my dad died, and my mom was very supportive.” For Houston, making paintings is a lot easier than selling them. “I make something that no one needs, but hopefully that they want. It felt strange to me at first to sell them.” As time went on, Houston became a painter of the edges, the boundaries. His landscapes frequently show the East Tennessee terrain at dusk, the sky a thermonuclear explosion of glowing color, the land dark, but the top of the sky even darker. What Joseph Conrad described in Heart of Darkness as “the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention” is very much in evidence. Houston’s strongest attachment is to the Nineteenth Century Hudson River School of painters, who favored sweeping panoramas of rivers, hills, and mountains, all set in a golden light nature as it was before man. Houston, however, is darker than them. His paintings suggest creation or destruction or both, the moment of “in-between” in which one can sense the coldness of space and the warmth of the earth. Houston has remained tied to East Tennessee. He says he’s a product of it, and its temperaments and moods suit him. But he also likes Maine, his mother’s home state, and a place where he spent summers in his youth, exposed to paintings by Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer in the town museums. A few years ago, he completely renovated his father and grandfather’s old general store in New Market. He turned the inside into living and working quarters, with a big studio downstairs, as well as a woodworking shop. From the outside the old store looks much as it always has. The inside is filled with furniture Houston has made himself, and artwork by his friends. “Each piece of art suggests a whole friendship to me,” he said. Lately, he has found himself starting his artistic life over. He’s making the switch from watercolor to oil, and to much larger canvasses six, even seven feet wide. Watercolor won’t forgive an artist’s mistakes, but oil is forgiving the painter can paint layer after layer until he has it right. And exactly what is right? Houston’s easel, which he made himself of walnut, bird’s eye maple, and other woods, is inscribed at the top with a line from a Les McCann jazz piece: “Trying to Make it Real Compared to What?” “When I first heard that piece, I thought it was so dynamic. It just hit me. You know, people are always saying that this or that piece of art is so real, so much like the real thing. But what is real? What isn’t?” Houston believes his work revolves around the anthropic principle, which holds that the universe requires human consciousness to validate its own existence. Mind is made of the same particles as rocks and trees, so consciousness is in effect matter reflecting on its own being. “That means that really my work is a mirror of matter reflecting on its own existence,” Houston said. “I believe that our consciousness is somehow or other tied into the universe.” Maybe that’s why his paintings ring with the feeling of creation, what he calls the “spiritual shock of seeing things.” Writer Alan Watts describes something similar: “We must see that consciousness is neither an isolated soul nor the mere function of a single nervous system, but that totality of interrelated stars and galaxies which makes a nervous system possible. Lately, Houston has been working on (surprise) a large canvas of a windy spring day, filled with clouds backlit by a strong sun. It’s driving him crazy. He keeps wheeling his chair back ten or fifteen feet to look at it, and he’s happy with the clouds and sky, but not the ridges. The painting is already sold and it was promised months ago, but he can’t let it go. Jazz is blaring from the speakers on the wall. The color of one field, he says, is wrong. Completely wrong, and he mutters something about the curse of perfectionism. Outside it’s gloomy, beginning to rain. Driving by on Old Andrew Johnson Highway you can see the light inside the studio, and from a distance it looks as if Houston isn’t painting. It looks instead as if he is cleaning a window, a large rectangular window through which the light comes more and more forcefully as he cleans. Used by permission from the author. Originally published in “Community 2001” by the Standard Banner, Jefferson City, TN. Thursday, March 15, 2001