Robert Goldman: 0:00

I just let my instinct take over, basically, and I've learned to trust it over the years. and And it doesn't always lead you where you want to go, but your your subconscious is when it comes to painting. It's definitely superior to the intellect at times. You know, it's just you know you'll come up with decisions that you never would have considered if you just allow that to come through.

Laura Arango Baier: 0:28

Welcome to the Faso Podcast, where we believe that fortune favors of oldbrush. My name is Laura Baier, and I'm your host. For those of you who are new to the podcast, we are a podcast that covers art marketing techniques and all sorts of business tips, specifically to help artists learn to better sell their work. We interview artists at all stages of their careers, as well as others who are in careers tied to the art world, in order to hear their advice and insights. For today's episode, we sat down with Robert Goldman, an American painter with over 50 years of experience, known for his vibrant, design-conscious canyon and landscape works, and his deep roots in plein air and illustration. He shares his journey as an artist, shaped early by a supportive art-filled family and a lifelong commitment to drawing and painting. He explains how studying illustration, commercial art, and life drawing, along with influential teachers and peers, gave him the technical foundation to later develop his distinctive, color-rich canyon landscapes. Robert emphasizes the importance of critique and community, describing how feedback from his brother, his wife, and fellow painters keeps his work honest and evolving. In terms of process, he advises artists to start carefully from reference, establish strong values, and then gradually let instinct and the subconscious take over, so that the painting can depart from mere copying. As practical career advice, he stresses discipline, showing up like a regular job, taking breaks for fresh eyes, and being prepared for a long up and down journey that may require side income while you build your art life. His core piece of advice is that even if you can't always make a living from art, you can make a life with it by staying dedicated, continually learning, and remaining open to opportunities, community, and change. Finally, Robert tells us about his participation with the annual Sedona Plein Air Festival and the Legacy Gallery Holiday Small Works Show. Welcome, Robert, to the Faso Podcast. How are you today?

Robert Goldman: 2:14

Oh, thank you for inviting me to do this. It's it's really an honor. Thanks for having. I and I really look forward to it.

Laura Arango Baier: 2:23

Yeah, me too. I'm excited because I love the way that you use color in your paintings. I think it is, it's so you. I can definitely pick out one of your pieces out of hundreds if I see hundreds of pieces, and I really particularly love the color combinations you use and how you use those to create these beautiful landscapes and canyons. So I'm really excited to dive into how you got to where you are as an artist, and we can talk more about your work. But before we do that, do you mind telling us a bit more about who you are and what you do?

Robert Goldman: 2:59

Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah, I've been actually at this art game for over 50 years, and I got started actually quite early interested in art, and starting early on. You know, my family, my my mom was an artist. I have an older brother and older sister, and my brother Ken, 13 months younger, and my older brother Danny was an influence on us, on Ken and I, and our mom, and we had art books around the house and that kind of thing, and like the Andrew Loomis books, and Kenny and I would would constantly copy those, how to draw the head and hands, that kind of thing, and so art was was considered something that was was a worthy thing to pursue, and and at a very young age, at about eight or so, I I kind of had this idea in my head that I I wanted to be an artist, and I had a vision that, well, I'll probably do okay, and maybe by the time I'm 60, I'll be doing pretty well, because I I'd heard that artists don't always start out right away doing that, and so here I am now at 77. So hopefully some of that has come true, but yeah. So so the family influence got me going early on, and my brother Ken and I always we still we work together. He's in San Diego and we critique each other's work quite often. And he used to joke about you know we'd lay our beady eyes on a painting, and so it turned out he'd say, "Okay, just give me your beadies." And that's what we do. And and Ken is an outstanding artist, and also as a former president of the National Watercolor Society, he he's also juried a lot of shows. So he's he's just got an excellent eye that he's developed over the years. So we have a lot of mutual trust, and that's very important. And so, critiquing one's work, I think, is very helpful because a lot of times you'll miss little things. And and my wife is helpful that way too. She'll she'll point out little things, and that's really good because that's more like the average person looking at your art and getting to into their mindset, because we can sometimes get so deep into the the weeds of what we're doing and forget about what the general public may be thinking about our work. But anyhow, that's that was the initial inspiration for getting me going as an artist.

Laura Arango Baier: 6:07

Yeah, and I love that you just mentioned how your wife becomes, you know, a little bit of like that litmus test for how people who aren't artists see things because it is true. We end up as artists, oftentimes we end up worrying about much more particular things in paintings than people who don't practice painting do, and we actually tend to make a mountain out of a mole hill over things that people who don't paint don't really care about. So it's good to have that perspective from someone, someone who is an artist, so your brother, and then someone who isn't, because it is easy to forget that there's how much information is just enough, and how much information is overstating something in a painting. I think that's a really interesting way of seeing it.

Robert Goldman: 6:59

Yes, that was very well said.

Laura Arango Baier: 7:01

Well, thank you. I also wanted to know a little bit more about how your path was when you were. I mean, it's great that you had family that was extremely encouraging about being an artist. That it didn't seem like I've met so many artists who have told me like, oh, my parents told me to get a reasonable job first or a reasonable career, because artists, you know, they don't make a living, and they'll, you know, say all these all of these things that aren't necessarily untrue, because it is really hard to be an artist. But it is untrue that you can't make a living. You can actually. When was the moment where you're like, okay, I want to go study painting specifically, and then did you always want to be a fine artist, or was that something you kind of landed on?

Robert Goldman: 7:47

Well, it's I just always had the interest in in making art of one kind or another, and it started out with very early on, just even doing illustrations. In fact, my brother and I both did these illustrations of Greek and Norse mythology. So it's like in the news today. You know, we have the Odyssey, and I used I illustrated that years ago. You know, when we were kids, and it was really fun. But yeah, like I said, after about eight years old, I had that in the back of my mind, and I also was thinking even back then. Well, how am I going to make a living? And I thought, well, maybe I'll be an electrician, or I'll be an architect, and and later on, I did kind of look into those things, you know, like joining a union and that kind of thing, and and my dad's business at the time it was in the dress manufacturing business, and so it was sort of like he was thinking that maybe one of us would just follow along, and we would we would go into the factory all the time working there, and I was mainly in the shipping department, and but then when it came time to think about it, when we got older, you know, both Kenny and I said, you know, this really isn't for us, and we got to follow our own voice. And so, as I was working Along, I I was like back in San Diego painting and going outdoors, and this was like in the late '60s. I first started. I did my first like outdoor painting, and it was like about a four foot by four foot canvas, and it was over in Point Loma in San Diego, and at that time I had no clue about really what I was doing. But there was a certain excitement about just capturing what I saw out there, and it was basically a scene with trees in the foreground, with the ocean in the distance. And as I progressed, I started to. Realized that I wasn't really understanding how to paint outdoors. I was really good with detail. I'd also had a a background in commercial art because, again, Kenny really, my brother, really kind of provided the fork in the road because I was doing abstract art. I thought maybe I'd go to New York or something, and this was like when I was around 20. And Kenny suggested that we go to San Diego City College, and this was after I'd already graduated from UCSD and everything, so we kind of did it did it backwards, and we had a wonderful, wonderful commercial art teacher, and he gave us all the tools we needed so that we could make a living at art, and that was what I did after that. I got a job at an ad agency, but basically just doing production art, very little illustration, and so I actually had to go back and apply to Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, and I wanted to learn more. And I had gone to a lot of life drawing sessions also, and I was really frustrated because I didn't understand a lot of the mechanics or the techniques for basic drawing. You know how to really show form on a flat two-dimensional surface, and I had seen some teachers up there at Art Center that were just phenomenal. And so I finally just decided I quit the job and I applied, and I didn't know if I'd be accepted. And lo and behold, I was accepted into the sixth semester. And so, anyhow, I I got in there. I was a little, I guess, about six years older than most of the other students, but it was very helpful, and I did get to study with with some of those teachers that I really admired as far as life drawing and also just general illustration. Ran into John Assaro there, who was a wonderful teacher also, and later I hung out with him some more, and because he lived in San Diego, and so basically, I finally went to the Scottsdale Artist School and took a workshop from a guy named Ray Vanella, and that was like in the early '80s, and that was what kind of opened my eyes to outdoor painting. You know how to how to get the first of all to understand light sources and reflected light, direct light, how you know pure paint can somehow simulate sunlight, that kind of thing. So that and then I just went on and on studying with lots of other people after that too, which I guess I could get into a little later.

Laura Arango Baier: 13:06

Yeah, yeah. I think also what's really interesting is you kind of had like such a such a winding path there with you know illustration and then going back and forth, and I think it's awesome that you got that commercial view from one of your your instructors who taught you. You know this is how you can make it. You had also mentioned to me that you did a bit of abstract art as well way before. Do you find that abstract has influenced a little bit of what you do now, or was it just something you did for fun, and you don't really think about it much.

Robert Goldman: 13:43

No, that's that's a good question. And we were just we had this idea and forced in our mind that we had to, when I was at UCSD, that we had to do something that was pushing the envelope that was different. You know that easel painting was basically passé. You know, and we we had to do some. So I was doing these huge canvases, and where I was just pouring like acrylic paint on them, and then laying plastic, and letting it dry, and peeling it off, and painting into it, and doing some interesting things, and also working in watercolor. I started doing that early back in like '67. Started that, and I I find that I'm always thinking about you're working with a flat surface, so do you want to do you want to make a realistic depiction of what you see, or do you want it to be about paint and shape and color notation, spacing, design? Or do you want it to be very representative? And I've fluctuated back and forth with that. And I think if I had decided on what I wanted to do at an earlier stage, I might have even got going earlier in what I what I'm doing now. But you know, you never know in life the different influences that come along, and I I find that it's very it's still challenging. But I am always thinking on an abstract level, to tell you the truth, even though I'm also observing all the the basic principles and fundamentals at the same time, so it's a combination, and there's a part of me that's always trying to push things a little bit, and that might, you know, there's a little bit impishness there where I want to, I still want to break the rules somehow, and yet at the same time try to observe, you know, some of the basic ideas of perspective and atmosphere and that kind of thing, lighting, light sources. So yeah, I'm pushing it a little bit, and maybe that's why you mentioned, you know, my my color sense. And I have heard that before. And one of the galleries that I'm in right now, the Legacy Gallery, they mentioned that my work seems to stand out there, and so you know, you just be who you are, you know.

Laura Arango Baier: 16:33

Yeah, yeah, and I love the vibrancy of the colors you use because it it it's so it's not like I know, like a lot of artists when they start painting or when they start developing their voice, it can be really easy to fall in love with all the colors and to just put all the colors at the peak chroma of the color. But I think the way that you have chosen the specific colors and to accentuate this very specific range of colors in certain parts, obviously in not all over the painting, it stands out because it means you've really planned it out, you've thought it through, you want to highlight this area and also give the eyes some rest over here with like a more flat tone. So I think the way that you've played with vibrancy is very tasteful, and it's so easy on the eyes. It totally stands out. I don't think I've ever seen anyone paint canyons the way that you do in the colorful way. That honestly, when I think of a canyon, I I do remember them being very bright, especially like when I was at the Grand Canyon, but when you take a picture, it doesn't really look like that. But I think your work captures that vibrancy, which I think is really awesome.

Robert Goldman: 17:50

Oh, thank you. Well, I also, at some stage, almost always in a painting, I do start with reference material, either either outdoors, doing plein air and getting color notes, or in the studio, I do have reference and I do follow it very carefully. Usually at the beginning, you know, I'm careful with my drawing, and I start usually in a monochromatic fashion and start to develop my value pattern, and then at some point, my instinct starts to take over, and I just start putting in some color notes. And at some point, it's the painting is fairly well completed. I will. I I don't even do it consciously, but I notice I'm not looking at the reference as much anymore, and I'm starting to deal with the painting on its own terms, and so there's a certain real kind of a liberation from that the reference where I can just deal with the esthetic issues of the painting. So that's probably another reason why I I find you know this more just an individual impression rather than just trying to just copy copy copy. At some point, I just let my instinct take over basically, and I've learned to trust it over the years, and and it doesn't always lead you where you want to go. But your your subconscious is when it comes to painting, is definitely superior to the intellect at times. You know, it's just you know you'll come up with decisions that you never would have considered if you just allow that to come through, and I'm always thinking about design and things like that. Like a, I'm looking at this painting here, and I'm seeing the, like the these are the Lasalle Mountains in the distance here, Canyonlands, and then I under the Mesa Arch here. I wanted to make sure that there was kind of almost a straight versus more activity with the mountains, and yet breaking it up so that it wasn't repetitious. Even though in the reference it might have looked like it was almost like the teeth of a saw, I didn't want to do that. So that kind of thing, Just I become I you know those are things I get really obsessive about to tell you the truth when it comes to painting is these little design issues or little subtle things about reflected light or direct light and and like you mentioned earlier you know what am I what is the painting about and that wasn't always the case because early on, when I was doing the abstract, there was this more of an all-over kind of a abstract expressionist approach that I was thinking about, and I thought, well, you just had to put stuff all over the canvas, and it all had to kind of come at you at the same time, and I thought, you know, just having a subject was kind of like old-fashioned or something. I don't know how to say it, but it makes a lot of sense to have a hierarchy, a hierarchy of interest. So you have a first reading, and a second reading, and a tertiary reading, and so forth.

Laura Arango Baier: 21:20

Yeah, yeah, and also like how in a lot of illustration, it's important to have you know foreground, middle ground, background, and you know make sure that that gives more depth to the image, which you definitely have in all of yours. And you also do something really interesting, which is you seem to have a preference for large works, and I feel like that also may have been from your time doing abstract. Would you say that?

Robert Goldman: 21:48

That's true. And also, you know, just going back with my brother Ken, we one of the things we did too was we painted a lot of murals, and this was actually after I got back from Art Center, and I was back in San Diego, and I don't know how Kenny did it, but he was always able to find work for us doing murals, and so like you know, and I would usually do like the landscape, the background, and Kenny was would do the detail, like if there were birds or butterflies or very detailed things. He he would handle that, and I would just have the general background. Or in some cases, we did a mural in Payson, Arizona, in 1972, and I did some figures in there where these this couple was dancing, and they were holding beer steins and some climbers going up a wall, which went up like 40 feet at one point, but it was basically a Swiss scene, and yeah, it's still there at the Quality Inn if anybody ever goes to Payson, but it's only open during the Continental breakfast. But it used to be a really fancy restaurant when it first opened, and now that it's-I don't know-it's-it's not the same as as the Laura days as before. But that was really our first our first mural, and our teacher Harvey Adams, who taught us commercial art, he helped us lay it out and everything, so that when we the building was just being built, so we were in there with the workers and everything, painting and acrylic on the wall, and so yeah, that was our first experience working large. But you know, I do little six by eights also, and little studies, and I always, almost always, will do a small study first before I will work, and I'll sometimes do an intermediate size, and then from there go up to a really large size because each time I I understand the terrain a little better. As far as it's like reading a map and knowing, okay, I've been to this place, I've been there, and I find that For me, essential as far as expressing what's on my mind and getting it out there, and I still make lots of mistakes and I cut up lots of paintings, but that makes the the ones that make it somehow even better. And the one reason that I think I have these problems is I'm always trying to do something new, almost every time that I haven't done before. And you know, although we start with a formula with the lay-in and the drawing and everything, that procedure goes well. But at some point, it gets really serious, and I usually sometimes we'll have to just take the painting and face it against the wall and forget about it for a while. And I guess my friend Ray Roberts once, yeah, I remember he mentioned that yeah, you take the painting and you face it against the wall, and then three weeks later you go, oh my gosh. Painted itself, you know. That's just kind of a saying that you you see it with fresh eyes.

Laura Arango Baier: 25:06

Yeah, yeah, and I think you know, giving yourself like that compartmentalization after a while is so important because we can be our own worst critics, and oftentimes a painting. I'll I'll look at a painting of mine, like that, I thought at that time this is the worst thing I've ever done. And then, like months later, I'm like, "What was I thinking? This actually isn't that bad. Like, I was totally over overplaying how bad it was. And then it's even better when you show it to someone else who also says,"Like, what were you think? This is great. Why would you think this is awful? It's like, yeah, it can. It's it's good to have some time away from certain works for sure. But yeah, and then you also mentioned that you plan out like you do like a smaller and then a slightly bigger and a slightly bigger. I think that is awesome because it goes to show that every person, when you're an artist, so much of of developing your work and developing how like where you want to take your things is also paying attention to your own process and what you need, and I think you having that okay, I'm gonna make it little and then a little bigger and then okay now I'm ready. That's really it. It goes to show that you have, you know, already set out this way for you to reach from point A to point B, and now you know. Okay, I'm more confident in reaching this higher level. Which, of course, even though you've already kind of done it, it's still going to have its own challenges because you have extra space that you got to fill out, and you have extra questions that need answering. So I think that's really awesome having developed a process for that.

Robert Goldman: 26:49

Yeah, yeah, no. Again, well said. You're an artist yourself, so I know you can relate to all this.

Laura Arango Baier: 26:57

Yes, yeah, and the ever-evolving process part is

Robert Goldman: 27:01

just-it's something I think we all paint down, you know, and on a large canvas, and I hope it's going to work. I do plan it out, you know, because some of these paintings are fairly complex, you know, especially some of the Grand Canyon scenes. So I want to make sure that I kind of get all of my ducks in a row first.

Laura Arango Baier: 27:22

Yes, yeah. And speaking of the Grand Canyon, and just you know your subject matter, why? What drew you to that specific subject matter? Was it, oh, I love this. I want to paint it again and again, or was that you know something that you came across incidentally?

Robert Goldman: 27:39

Well, we our family lived in Payson, Arizona, like starting in the, I guess it was in the late '60s, and my folks were there actually. I don't know. I think they left maybe in the early '90s or something, but they were quite a while, so I spent a lot of time out there. Even though I was living in San Diego, I would still go out in and that part of the world, and I got to know Arizona pretty well. And I could drive up to the Grand Canyon or to Sedona, and that's where I guess my interest in the canyons started to happen, and then around the late '90s, we moved to Tucson, Arizona, from San Diego, and that was a big change. And this is something

else that I wanted to mention: 28:33

is when I first got to Tucson, I had no clue color-wise what to do? I was so used to being surrounded by green and blue. Basic, even though I was kind of drawn to inland areas in San Diego, I wasn't per se just painting seascapes or anything. I I did like going in to like the San Pasqual area where the wild animal park is and that, so I started out when we first moved there for well over a year. I would sit in my truck and with ink, I'd have like three different values of ink, and I would draw mainly construction vehicles because that was going around where we were. They were, they were just mowing down these mountain tops, you know, giving them flat tops and then building on top of them. And that area was really growing in the late '90s when we got there. And I just really, really enjoyed painting these monster trucks. You know, the earth movers and the the water tank trucks or whatever. And I did them all in black and white. And I would, I did that for well over a year. And I didn't. And I slowly started getting into color. Again, but it took a while, and just a segue. This is kind of where I started to run into a lot of other artists there in Tucson, and one of the first people-not the first-but I ran into a guy named Gabor Svadrich, and we we had some like critique groups that we would do, and then he got into doing this like art school thing there in Tucson, and so that's where I got to meet Matt Smith, and I'd already known Phil Stark, and we painted a lot, but he was an influence, and and that's where I ran into Ray Roberts, and I didn't realize, but we had been colleagues at Art Center in the mid nine in the mid 70s, and it ended up later on. He he called me one day and said, "Hey Bob, I'm going up to a million cliffs. You want to paint? And my wife said, "Oh my God, that's right, Roberts. You got to go. So I immediately packed up my stuff, and that kind of started a thing where we would we would go on different painting excursions. And I've he's been one of my main influences. I've just learned tons from him, but also these other artists have been very very helpful, and I might as well mention a few others. John Assaro back in San Diego, he really gave me more of an understanding of how light hits on different planes on a figure, especially, and he did some landscapes too, also and his color use, and it's just as the I don't know. It's he he was really into curves and things like that, very much designy type things, and so he was a big influence. And then when I was here, when we moved to from Tucson. I'm kind of jumping a little bit, but I ran into Bill Anton here, and he was really helpful, especially like with with painting horses and that kind of thing. But just understanding the light out here in the high desert, and and that got me to actually Ray Roberts and I both we took a workshop from Ned Jacob, who was a phenomenal painter of horses. I remembered seeing his works years ago in Taos, and so things like that were really helpful. But also, on the other hand, I was also ran into an artist by the name of Wayne Tebow. I first met him in San Diego when he was giving a talk at a Saroya show, and later on it turned out that he was teaching a workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and so I spent a couple weeks there studying and also playing tennis with him, he was a really good tennis player, and we we maintained contact over the years. And he was always very supportive of what I was doing. And also in San Diego, there was another artist named Wolf Kahn who had a show at the Fine Arts Gallery there, and I met him on the opening night, and I was talking with him, and I guess I was giving him a bit of a hard time because I said,"Isn't basically what you're doing? Isn't it just impressionism, you know? And he goes, "Well, yeah, I think we all kind of come from impressionism, but I do it in my own way. And he said, "In a way, I'm trying to to do Rothko from Nature, you know. He said something like that, and and then my brother Ken met him. Didn't yeah? I I don't know if he met him personally there in San Diego, or I think he saw the show, and he contacted him in New York. I would have never done this, and he said, "Hey, would you come out and like do a workshop? And so it turned out that on three separate occasions, Wolfgang came out to San Diego, and we organized it and made sure that there were enough people there to take that. So I had that kind of contemporary influence, along with the more traditional landscape plein air approach, so maybe that explains some things too. It can be confusing at times, also.

Laura Arango Baier: 34:32

Yeah, yeah, but it's really good to be surrounded by a lot of really great artists and and people who, you know, it's it's so important to have you know other artists and people who can also you know hold you accountable to an extent. I mean, because if you go out painting with you know a friend, you're holding each other accountable for okay, well we're going together, we're gonna show up at this time, we're gonna paint, and it doesn't matter if it's good or not. Though it's kind of nice and reward. If it is, but it's really wonderful to have a support system like that. It can be really tough for an artist when you're totally alone trying to figure it out, especially you know when it feels like I don't even know what I'm doing, where I'm going. So having you know other artists to bounce stuff around with or see their work and get inspired by it. I think that's really great. I think most every artist should do that.

Robert Goldman: 35:26

Yes, because I think all of us as artists, and I can't. I can only speak for myself. I tend to be a loner, and I just kind of want to paint to tell you the truth. And when I moved to Tucson, I ran into some folks who wanted to organize a painting group there, and I go, I go, what? No, I don't want to join a group. And they said, Bob, just sign this right here. So I was one of the founding members of the Tucson Plein Air Painters Society, and and I was a lady named Gwen Dean, and she introduced me to her son Glenn when he was, and they were both having a show together at the at a chapel there in Tucson. So she had Glenn come by, and I visited with him in the studio. And there was something about his work, even back then, that I thought, gosh, this guy-you know-he's really, he's got something, you know. And I'm fairly good at now at kind of recognizing things. Or some people just have a certain spark, and and it's just fun to watch. It's almost like watching, you know, like if you plant something in the garden and it grows, and it's-I've really enjoyed following his career as as he's progressed to be one of the top painters. You know, it's really interesting. But this plein air group, I I whether I liked it or not, we all got together and it was really helpful. And we go out painting in different locations. And what was strange is at some point people-I don't know why-but they'd start asking me,"Well, Bob, how do you do this or that? And I go, "Why are they asking me? You know. And so I had to kind of think, "Well, I don't know. I guess I do this and I do that. And then finally, somebody said, "Hey, why don't you teach a workshop? And I go,"Oh no, you know the weather's horrible. We can't. You know, I came up with all these excuses, and they said, "No, we want you to do a workshop. So I, I had to be forced into these things, and so, but that's really how you learn. And I, I tell folks, you know, if you really want to learn, try teaching, because you have to explain what you're doing, and and you also can see other people on a similar journey, and you can be very objective in that sense. And so that's what I try to do.

Laura Arango Baier: 37:58

If you've been enjoying the podcast and also want to ask our guests live questions, then you might want to join our monthly webinar, the Faso Show, where our guest artists discuss marketing tips, share inspiring stories, and answer your burning questions in real time. Whether you're a seasoned painter or just starting your creative journey, this is your chance to connect, learn, and spark new ideas. And whether you're stuck on a canvas or building your creative business, this is where breakthroughs happen. Don't miss out. Ignite your passion and transform your art practice by joining us. Our next Faso Show webinar is coming up on the 13th of August with our special guest Kathleen Dunphy. You can find the sign-up link in the show notes. Yeah, and it's you know, it's so much like you said, stepping out of your comfort zone. I think a lot of us artists are much happier being alone in our studio for many hours, not talking to another soul. But you can't grow much if you're always in your comfort zone. So it's really great that you were somewhat forced to step out of your comfort zone and to teach because that's another thing that I think a lot of us are like, oh gosh, who am I to teach anyone? I don't know what I'm doing. You know, I think that's one of our difficult things is the imposter syndrome. That because we move our goalposts further and further each time we almost reach them, we're always going to feel like we're never there, which is fine. I think you know to some extent we should never be complacent, but we should still look back and recognize, oh, I've I've actually gotten quite far. You know,

Robert Goldman: 39:31

yeah, no, I agree. And you know, thinking back in San Diego, I'm kind of changing the subject a little bit toward more like exhibiting and that kind of thing. I did exhibit work in San Diego. Plus, I was doing odd jobs besides working in an ad agency for a while and doing driving a truck and working a leather shop and different things. But I was also showing there was the. Knowles Gallery in La Jolla, and then the Tarbox Gallery, which was in downtown San Diego, and then also near that area at the the Pratt Gallery. And so I had experience in those years, and before moving to Tucson, and you know having a one man show usually every year at those galleries, but like I said, everything changed when I moved to Tucson, and you know I think you one of the questions maybe you wanted to ask was well when did you feel like you know things were moving forward, and there was this one event up in in Utah in Mount Carmel, and it was called the Maynard Dixon Country Show. And I always followed that show because all the best artists in the country would attend it every year, usually in August. And to make a long story short, I was invited to participate in that show in 2015 as a guest artist, and which was shocking enough to me. But that kind of started a whole new thing, and so Paul and Susan Bingham, for they believed in the work I was doing, and they were so supportive. And after I think it was like the second show, I Paul approached me and said, "You know, I'm thinking of maybe I'm thinking maybe I'll give you and Ray Roberts and Ruts Case, a show together here, and I said, "Oh, that'd be great, you know, to be among people like that. And and then about three weeks later, he calls and he says, "You know what? I think it's time you turned a corner. I just want to give you a show. And so that's kind of like where that started, and we ended up actually having four solo shows each year consecutively, and and then unfortunately Paul passed away. But the first show was following the footsteps of John Wesley Powell, the explorer, and for that, I actually traveled all over, and got information. Went up to Wyoming to the Green River, where where he started everything. The exhibition started, and there's a famous butte there, which Thomas Moran had painted, and it didn't look anything like what Thomas Moran had painted when I was there because there was like all this, you know, street, you know, just I don't know how to explain it, but it was very almost industrialized around there, and the wetlands that used to be there weren't there. There was still a river for sure, the Green River, and but you know I did my research and I also used a drone to get different angles of shots, and that's something I got from Ray Roberts also, and it was a wonderful tool. So not only that, but I, I went up in a helicopter over the Grand Canyon to get another viewpoint to kind of like carry on with this Powell idea, and there was this one painting. It was the east end of the Grand Canyon, looking toward the Chuar Butte, which I saw from the helicopter, and that gave me a whole different perspective on the canyon. You seeing it from that viewpoint, and and then that of course led to other adventures. Another one was the Colorado River runs through Vermillion Cliffs, and there's a bridge there called the Navajo Bridge. And so I did a painting. It was above the Colorado Navajo Bridge, and I have a version of it here, which is I did recently, but I did an earlier one. I think it was like a 36 by 36, and I sold that. I think that was in the first show. I think it was in maybe it was 2019. I can't remember, but I wanted to revisit that again, and that's why I did that that scene again. But that that was all kind of based on this idea of Powell's adventures, and so that's how I got really introduced. To make a long story short, to the canyons, and and then hanging out around Mount Carmel, of course, I had to go over to Zion. And that was a whole nother experience there, and I went out there back in 2018, shortly after my 70th birthday, and that time of year you can drive back in there. You don't need to take a shuttle bus. So in the back of my mind, I was determined I was going to hike up Angel's Landing, which is an extreme hike, and that's what I did. And my exercise watch was just going nuts. You know, I've never accomplished anything like that since then. But I honestly wasn't sure I was going to make it at one point. I was so out of breath, but I did get all the way to the top. There's a chain at the top, and you got to pull yourself up. So from that view, I did painting for my 2018 show there at Thunderbird. It was a big 36 by 48 of that view, and so recently, I decided I was going to go out again. And unfortunately, my wife had some serious health issues, and I could not leave the house. I was her caretaker 24/7, and so I had to rely on the old reference. So it was kind of interesting to work on something that I had done a number of years ago with fresh eyes, and so I did one version with a 24 by 30, and that was included in a show. I'm also a signature member of Plainer Painters of America, and we just recently had a show at the Thunderbird Foundation, and I had that painting plus a smaller one of the canyon on display there. And they both sold on the opening night. And unfortunately, I really wanted to be there, but I couldn't. And I I then also did a larger version. It was a 36 by 42 of of the view of the Zion Valley from up there at Angel's Landing, and I ended up taking that one. And it's currently over there at the Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale. That's the that's a big painting, and and so that's that led me on to also I participated in the Grand Canyon celebration of art for many years, and I think it was in trying to remember the year. Let's see. Oh, 2019! I got the best of show at the Grand Canyon celebration of art, and the juror was John Stern, who I really thought a lot of. You know, he's really, especially with California Impressionism. Him and his brother, you know, both very much involved in that, And so, for like 11 years, I participated in that event. So we would stay for many, many days painting there, and then we'd have like a two-hour quick draw where we'd paint the canyon. It was very nerve-wracking, and then have the paintings auctioned off. So that's where I got to know the canyon, Grand Canyon, really well. Also,

Laura Arango Baier: 48:26

that's fantastic.

Robert Goldman: 48:27

What about way of explaining all that?

Laura Arango Baier: 48:32

Yeah, no, but it's fantastic because you know it goes to show that it's life kind of takes you places, and you go with the flow, and before you know it, you know you're in a totally different place than you could have ever imagined, and and it's oftentimes a better place than you could have imagined. You know, I feel like our imagination can sometimes limit us compared to how life develops itself for us. So it is really nice to you know maybe have a goal and then like oh wow it ended up taking me over here and oh now it's taking me over there so I think that's wonderful. Would you say that it was when you started these solo shows that you stopped taking any side jobs or were you able to you know stop doing side jobs before that.

Robert Goldman: 49:22

Yeah, at that point, what I was fortunate about is my wife had a full-time job, and that really helped out a lot. So, I still I had a a side career kind of as an art dealer, to tell you the truth, where I would go to estate sales and I found some really nice art that I could sell at auction, and that helped a lot too. And that kind of dried up for me later because people got more savvy, you know, when once with the internet and that kind of thing, and they could have their little app and they could identify. I work, and I was just going on my own understanding as an artist, or understanding signatures and that kind of thing. So that that was one sideline that I pursued, and it it helped out to some extent. And I was showing and selling, you know, at the gallery there, Mount Carmel. That was my main gallery at the time, and still I'm still there. And although Paul is gone, Susan Bingham has done a fantastic job, and such an awesome person. You know, they they were they were like a dynamic duo. Those two in the art world, and it's you know having the pop up show there also introduced a lot of artists that maybe weren't familiar with the area, so they got to see how beautiful that area was, and the you know where Baier Dixon painted where he had his studio and home, and where he would go. You know, when it got too hot in Tucson, him and his wife Emily would head up there, and I, I'm really, I'm, I'm so grateful to them. And it's just recently that I about a year and a half, I added the Legacy Gallery also, and they've been fantastic. They're such a professional outfit, and they carefully curate what you know when I submit things that has to be approved, and so they have a real feel for what what would be a good fit for their gallery, and I have been selling well there, which is really nice, also. And I am in a I just it's kind of a side, but I'm also in the Sean Horn Gallery in Crested Butte, Colorado, and that was from another Papa show we had out there, and when the show ended, Sean Horn asked if he could hang on to my paintings in the gallery, and I thought, well, it's better to have them in a gallery than just sitting in storage or something. So, so they're out there in Crested Butte. If anybody ever gets out that way, so any. you know I just painted away, and you know I'm looking up here, and there's another area where Vermillion Cliffs. Ray Roberts really introduced me to that area, and there's one feature there called Tooth Rock. I found out about the name of that later. I always thought it looked like the praying hands or a rocket ship or something, but it's on the way to Lee's Ferry, and Ray used to take his classes there, and we would paint that. And so I recently did a painting of that and had an opportunity to to hitch a ride up the river with someone, and they were taking some mountain climbers along on the way. And I asked the name of that, and they said, "Oh yeah, we call it the Tooth, you know. And I looked it up, and it was Tooth Rock, and they had climbed to the top of it before, and they said it was very tricky because it was very old rock, very crumbly, whatnot. But anyhow, so I did a painting called Tooth Rock, also Vermilion Cliffs, plus some. I'm working on some smaller pieces. One is Morning Glory, Vermilion Cliffs, and that-that's another from another trip up there, and these are some smaller pieces. Also, another one called Golden Light Zion, and Spring Snow Sedona. I've also painted in Sedona quite a bit, and I'm going to be in the miniature show at the Legacy Gallery. So I'm. These are possibilities. I'm trying to come up with three real nice paintings for that show, which will be on right around the Christmas season. So I've got a okay. So I'm looking at my notes here. I also spent quite a bit of time out there in the Canyonlands area, and there's an arch called the Mesa Arch. I talked about a little bit in this painting here, and so like for this scene right here, I I'm I'm starting to introduce figures a little bit more in my work, and it's something that I'm familiar with as far as life growing, although I haven't I haven't painted a lot of figures, but I think they do add a certain element. But in this painting, what interested me was how this figure related to some of these features out here-the same vertical. And this the interesting features. I looked them up, and this is actually called the Washer Woman here, and it looks like somebody actually kind of doing the wash. And this is called the Monster Tower, and then the behind is the Airport Butte, and then the Lasalle Mountains in the distance. So it kind of tells a story, and so that's and the other thing is I I can work on these for months some of these paintings and another bit of advice is I hang these paintings like above the TV in the living room so I'm my eyes always on the paintings like during a commercial or something and I'll very often see something that bugs me. In other words, it's not quite done. I'll, I may have already sent an image to my brother Kim, and he'll maybe okay it or not. You know, or he'll mention a few things, but then I'll still see little things. And until there's absolutely nothing that bugs me about the painting, that's when I know it's done, And so it's a fairly rigorous type of thing to do. Yeah. And I I I don't know. That's lately what what I've been up to as far as that goes. You know, with these recent pieces, and I also Sorry.

Laura Arango Baier: 56:23

Oh, you've been very busy.

Robert Goldman: 56:25

I have been very busy, and also at the Grand Canyon, I sometimes like finding unusual spots. Like there's there's a spot called the Coronado Butte, which most people don't see because they're driving right by it, and it's just a little bit west of Moran Point, and so I was intrigued by that view also. And I actually hiked out in through the trees and got some reference images for that. And the challenge there is when you come back to remember where your car was along the road, because the forest is the forest, and you're just wandering around. And you go, well, which way do I go? Do I go to the right or the left? So I learned after a while, almost like to memorize certain landmarks, which which helps quite a bit when you're bushwhacking like that. But like, I also I've been up in Sedona when there's been some light snow, and that's always impressive. And I, I'm going to be painting in the Sedona plein air event again this year. I was invited back, so Sedona is always a subject that I like. And I also have an example of a spring snow Sedona from a little 12 by 16, which is fairly simple, and I've started to introduce figures. The same with the golden light painting in Zion. That pretty much covers it. I also one year at the Grand Canyon event. I hung out with an artist, Anton Nels, and we we painted at this one spot quite a bit. And one day there was like some rain in the distance there, and so this this little painting, which I'm going to include in the Sedona show coming up, has that kind of veil of moisture hanging down with the light catching it, and I-I don't know. I was going to call. I think I called it Transcendence Grand Canyon, but I also referred to it as Grand Canyon showers. But that was an interesting experience. The canyon is always changing like that. Yeah,

Laura Arango Baier: 58:44

and it's it's a beautiful. It's it just its portrait is so different every time. You know, that's one of the things with plein air that I I do find really enticing, which is how air, humidity, and temperature, and time, and time of the year, and all of these things just affect the way that it seems. It can totally shift. You could paint the same location every day, and it's probably going to have a different face every time, even though it's the same place. And I think that's wonderful because it's a gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, but you seem like you have a very particular way of maintaining like a schedule for yourself. What would you say is like maybe a habit or something that has helped you maintain your artistic career and maintain your discipline as an artist?

Robert Goldman: 59:38

Well, like the the writer Summerset Mom had this saying. He said, "I have to, I have to have inspiration in order to create. I have to be inspired. And he said, "Luckily, inspiration shows up every morning at 9o'clock. So that. That's part of it, you know. I just show up for work, and I just start working, you know. And there's this other German philosopher Goethe, who had this. There's another saying that I like. He he said, "Only begin, and the mind gets heated. Only begin, and the task is completed. And it's so true. Once you just get in there, get in here, and start working, one thing leads to another. And it's it's also I they're kind of like imposed on me, but I have to take breaks right now. We don't have any dogs, but I know we will again, and so I'd have to do that, plus chores and things like that, and I think that's okay. You know, I don't think you want to be like hours and hours and hours. Sometimes you need to take a break, even if it's just turning your back on the painting or doing something or getting a snack or something. But just going out and doing something completely different, and you walk back in the studio, and almost instantly, you'll see what needs to be done. And whereas before you were just stuck in something somewhere, you just need to take a break. Is what I'm saying.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:01:19

Yeah, it's good to have a, you know, treat it like this is my job. I walk in here at nine in the morning or whatever time you know is is the best. And you just, you know, I I think the way that I like to trick myself because sometimes I it's like oh I don't wanna. I just sometimes oh just five minutes. I'll just do five minutes, maybe 10, and then before you know it, it's been five hours. I'm like, hold up, what just happened? Yeah, but yeah. And then I wanted to ask you as well. What final piece of advice would you give to someone who really wants to become a full-time artist or wants to live from their work?

Robert Goldman: 1:01:58

Well, I'm I'm thinking of another. My my friend Wayne Tebow used to say, you when it comes to that kind of a question, he he would say you may not be able to make a living, but you can make a life, and by that he meant just being absorbed in the whole art enterprise. You meet new people, you you meet new collectors, whatever. But you you you do have to, you know, have some some form of income, if it's a side job, whatever it is, and because it's tough, you know, it really is. And you know, you-it's like they say about

fame: 1:02:56

you can be up one year and down the next. You know, you just never know, and you have to have a real strong vision of wanting to express beauty or whatever it is. Got a spam call here, and you have you have to be in it for the long term. You really do, and you and you got to be disciplined. You've got to also, you know, talk with other artists and find out what's clicked for them. You know, get any ideas you can, and I mean that was that was how I I set up my first studio you know years ago there was an artist in Payson and I went by his studio and I saw the way he had it set up and I said okay well I'll set up my studio that way and to some extent I've done that and and you can see the pictures of all the famous artists you know, you you don't have to have a studio like John Singer Sargent. I couldn't paint like John Singer Sargent either, and but whatever works, as far as your working your working place, there there was a teacher at Art Center, Harry Carmion. He said that for a while, for an easel, he would just open a desk of drawers and set set his set his canvas on one of the drawers, you know, and that was his easel. So you didn't, but you just have you have to have some kind of a you have to have drive. You have to really want to see it through because you'll have ups and downs, that's for sure. But I've just in my from my mind, I've just had this image. This is what I've wanted to do forever, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy, and I was right about that. And occasionally, you just get an. Surprise, and you know, get an award or something, and just icing on the cake.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:05:09

Yeah, it's a very fulfilling job. I think that's also what I like about the quote that you know, it's you can't you can make a life with painting, and I think most, if not all, of the painters I've spoken to, who have done this for their whole lives, they look much more satisfied and refreshed, and generally content with their lives than I would say about people who, you know, maybe end up taking on jobs that oh well I had to do it, and you know, I also find it really interesting that as artists we do this because we want to and we enjoy it. And for us, there's no retirement, there's no stopping point really, unless you're physically incapacitated. But I swear, I think most artists I've met were like, "Oh, I couldn't paint with oils in my studio because I had a broken arm, so I painted with something else instead. Or like I, I will use my feet, you know. I think people who don't have that kind of fulfilling career of some sort, they, you know, it's almost like they retire and then they're like, now what? They don't really know what to do. So I think, yeah,

Robert Goldman: 1:06:23

it's a dilemma for many people. The other thing, you know, depending on the circumstances, because like when I was moving from San Diego, I had to pack up most of my art stuff, but I started like working, doing little acrylics, tiny little things on paper on a sketch pad, just sitting in my truck, and that kind of led to another thing, you know, which I really enjoyed doing, and that sort of helped transfer when I went to Tucson, because I would be working on my pad in my truck, and that was just circumstances that led me to do that, and and gouache has become very popular now. You know the medium gouache, and I see a lot more of it. And that's a wonderful medium for for people too. If I mean, you don't have to always be working doing really huge paintings. Just so long as you're working and doing something and trying to draw, or if there's like a life drawing workplace near you, try to do that. Try to draw the figure, and you know that's just a few little bits of advice, you know. But always work on your drawing, work on comparing shapes, alignments, that kind of thing, so that you get things somewhat accurate when you're working.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:07:44

Yes, definitely. Yeah, that's the other

Robert Goldman: 1:07:48

power of grays. Also, that was something actually of all the people I got from Wolfgang. You know, he kept talking about how important it was to use gray at times, and that's something that I saw Glendine using early on too, and it's been tough for me to tell you the truth. There were times when I just I would just use pure color right out of the tube, pretty much. So I've been subdued quite a bit, you know. I've kind of like taken it under control quite a bit more than I used to, and it and it's great. You know, there's it's just an endless journey. It really is, and some of it I wished I'd been open to when I was younger. Maybe I'd be even more advanced now. These days, with the internet, you can just study, you know, where before you had to sign up for a workshop or go somewhere. You can just online learn almost everything you want, and there's a whole new crop of young artists that I'm so thrilled to see developing, doing wonderful, wonderful art at a very early stage, and it's really I think there's been quite an evolution in that regard. Very impressive. Yes,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:09:10

definitely, definitely, awesome. And then I can also tell our audience about your upcoming shows. So yes, so you have the 22nd annual Sedona Plenter Festival in 2026 from october 16 to 24th, and then you have the Legacy Gallery Holiday Small Works Show december 11.

Robert Goldman: 1:09:34

That's correct. Yes, yeah, those are two great shows, and yeah, I I did both of them last year, and they were fantastic. And I don't get out and do a lot of plein air painting, so it's it's going to force me to do that up in Sedona because I've I've sort of reverted to being a studio painter quite a bit, but it's good to be forced into these things. Occasionally, and just get out there again.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:10:08

Yeah, yeah, awesome. And then, if someone wants to see more of your work, where can they go?

Robert Goldman: 1:10:15

Well, I I do have a website. I've had it for years with Faso, and it's RobertGoldmanFineart.com, and it's it's really worked out well for me. I mean, I'm not trying to advertise or anything, but seriously, I am not good with tech, technically speaking. But it's so easy, you know, just to get another painting on there, and you know if and and early on I was able to like ask questions. I could call people and they would like just talk on the phone and they'd explain things to me. And yeah, I don't even know how many years I've been with them now, but it's been a while, and really it's really helpful, and and a time I I actually had somebody just outright just hit the buy it now button one time, which was shocking. I thought, oh no, this has to be a scam. It was actually real. So yeah, it is

Laura Arango Baier: 1:11:15

a great functional

Robert Goldman: 1:11:16

website. I am on Facebook and Instagram, I don't remember my handle or anything, but you can find my work there.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:11:29

Perfect, great. Well, thank you so much, Robert, for the lovely conversation and inspiration. And I loved hearing about your life and how it's twisted and turned, and then become into canyons. Oh

Robert Goldman: 1:11:44

well, you've been awesome. You know, you you show a lot of understanding and empathy for what an artist goes through too. And I really, really appreciate you reaching out. And you know, I've learned to you know in the past sometimes I would have said, "Oh no, I can't do that. I can't. I mean, years ago, just one little aside. You know, back I think it was in the late '80s or something. I was approached by the plein air painters of America, and they wanted me to go out to Catalina and paint with them and everything, and I said, "Oh no, I'm not good enough. And so that's why when I got the call a few years ago from Arc Rator, and they said,"Well, we'd like to invite you to join Plein Air Painters. My first thought was, "Bob, don't do it again. Sure, I'm glad to do it. You know, so I was just thrilled that you asked, and I'm glad to hopefully, you know, just share a little slice of my artistic life here.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:12:53

Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure it will also resonate with some of our listeners who could be in a similar position, or maybe are fans of your work or become fans of your work. So I'm grateful to have you. The

Robert Goldman: 1:13:06

only other thing that I also have been doing is with Masterus,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:13:11

which is

Robert Goldman: 1:13:11

an online Zoom thing we do once a month, and I have a little small group of people that we've I've been working with for a little over a year, and just kind of we just talk, and I try to give them some advice, and I get to see what they're doing and do some little demos, little things that I share on my screen and that kind of thing. So that's about that's about it, you know. I'm just looking forward to getting out there again. You know, my wife is still using a walker, so I'm still staying at home. But pretty soon I'll be able to get out again and do some exploring.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:13:51

Yeah.

Robert Goldman: 1:13:52

So, but I really, really appreciate this opportunity,

Laura Arango Baier: 1:13:56

and I appreciate giving you the opportunity as well, because we all we all end up benefiting from it.

Robert Goldman: 1:14:05

That's great. Well, thanks so much.

Laura Arango Baier: 1:14:08

Of course, thank you to everyone out there for listening to the podcast. Your continued support means a lot to us. If you've enjoyed the episode, please leave a review for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or leave us a comment on YouTube. This helps us reach others who might also benefit from the excellent advice that our guests provide. Thank you.