DECEMBER 28, 2017 // 9
A TRUE ‘BLUE’ ARTIST IN SEASIDE
Blue Bond opens studio on
North Holladay Drive
By EVE MARX
FOR COAST WEEKEND
B
lue Bond, or Blue as he likes to
be called, was born in Louisville,
Kentucky. He says he was educated
in Tacoma, Washington, but you may
detect a bit of Southern charm in his accent.
He’s been a professional full-time painter
since 1967.
“I’ve been painting for four decades,”
Bond said. “I love painting and I love
showing my work, but what I really love is
teaching. I like passing on all the knowl-
edge of painting that was given to me.”
Blue Bond Studio and Gallery opened
recently in Seaside after a year in Cannon
Beach. “I specialize in private oil painting
classes for beginners to professionals,”
Bond said.
He works in oil himself, but his classes
are in oil and acrylic. Students provide their
own supplies, including paints, brushes,
thinner, palette paper and canvas, which
must be had by the second class. They also
provide their own subject matter in the
form of two photographs.
Adult three-hour group classes are
available; family members who take a class
together get a discount. Two-hour private
classes are also available with all basic
materials provided. Art groups of up to six
friends are encouraged.
“I teach the basics,” Bond said, noting
that students are amazed at how quickly
their creations materialize. He’s taught hun-
dreds of people in Vancouver, Washington,
who produced thousands of paintings, some
winning awards in art competitions.
‘Fantastic realism’
Blue Bond Studio and Gallery is an
enchanted space. Step inside and it’s imme-
diately clear you’re in a working art studio.
Bond paints right in the gallery. He and his
wife, Karen, and their two brindle boxer
brothers, Bo and Diesel, reside in the living
quarters.
Blue and Karen met 23 years ago when
she worked in banking. She’s retired from
that now. These days, she’s is in charge of
the business end of the gallery.
“Karen runs the show,” Bond said.
There are lots of paintings on the walls.
It’s a bit mesmerizing. His work is rep-
resentational. A critic at a show he did in
A self-portrait by Blue Bond
COURTESY DENISE FAIRWEATHER
A colorful bird at Blue Bond Studio and Gallery
Taos, New Mexico, called his distinctive
style “fantastic realism.” Another critic
called it “intense expressionism.” Bond’s
work is included in many private and cor-
porate collections.
In 2005 he was commissioned to do an oil
painting commemorating the 60th anniversa-
ry of the end of World War II. The anniver-
sary event, “America Celebrates Freedom,”
took place in Vancouver, Washington, and
was the largest such event in the U.S. spon-
sored by the Department of Defense. That
painting is now on display at the Vancouver
National Historic Reserve Trust.
Bond enjoys painting people. He loves
doing portraits. He’s often asked to paint
someone’s likeness on commission. He
showed a reporter a painting of a man soon
to leave the planet. He paints nudes. He
paints animals. Some of his most remark-
able work is of equines. Many people think
the eyes are the hardest thing to paint of a
horse or a mule or a donkey. Bond nails it.
Mural money
In 1961 Bond was a student at the San
Francisco Art Institute. A newspaper clip-
ping on the wall from the time shows Blue
Bond with his instructor, Professor Shapiro,
and a judge of the student show his work
appeared in. That judge is none other than
the esteemed painter Elaine de Kooning, an
abstract expressionist and figurative expres-
sionist artist.
“I was 19 years old at the time,” he said.
After graduating art school, Bond hit the
road, traveling the southwest and painting
all the while. Throughout his 20s, he said,
he primarily stayed in Taos and Santa Fe,
New Mexico.
In 1977 Bond was supposed to start a
job working for a sign company in Vancou-
ver, British Columbia.
“I never made it to the job because
I took on a job painting a giant outdoor
mural in Vancouver, Washington. I knew
it would take months to paint,” he said.
“The man who owned the building and who
commissioned the mural gave me $5,000 to
get started. We talked for a little while, and
then he went into a back room and came
out with that amount in cash. Can you be-
lieve it? He’d never laid eyes on me before
that day.”
‘We jumped on it’
Bond said he and his wife enjoyed com-
ing to the coast. For a year, he had a studio
EVE MARX PHOTO
Karen and Blue Bond at their new Seaside studio
and gallery next to Jeffrey Hull Gallery in
Cannon Beach, but he and his wife were
still living and commuting from Vancouver.
“It was just too much driving,” he said.
“So when this space in Seaside that could
also be living quarters became available,
we just jumped on it.”
For more information about the gal-
lery and painting classes, email Bond at
bondstudio@gmail.com. Call him at 503-
739-0660 or log on to his Facebook page.
The studio and gallery are located at 417 S.
Holladay Drive, Seaside.
Bond also teaches in Cannon Beach by
appointment. CW