LIFESTYLES
WEEKEND, FEBRUARY 21-22, 2015
1C
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Rosco Crooke uses a fine-tipped brush while working on a piece called “Thinking Happy Thoughts” at his home Wednesday in Pendleton.
His heart in paint
Rosco Crooke uses bright colors,
canvas to explore his inner self
subjects he thought people were
interested in buying. “I tried
to do landscapes, I tried to do
undreds of bottles of neon portraits,” he recalled, “but that
felt like pulling teeth, that was
and glow-in-the-dark
awful.”
paints stand across the
So he turned to what spoke
top of Rosco “Carrico” Crooke’s
to him — exploring emotions,
kitchen table, his makeshift art
thoughts and states of being on
studio. A colorful, shimmering
canvas. “I’ve always been a per-
work that looks like so many
son who has to visualize things to
pieces of hard candy sits near
understand them,” he said. “Tree
completion, two others are
of Doubt,” for example, shows a
in more basic stages. Several
silhouette of a tree against a stark
adorn the walls of his home near
background, its barren branches
downtown Pendleton.
wilting, almost like tears falling.
Crooke, 38, a beefy man
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with a dry laugh, has spent the
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past two years developing into a
just not fun.” — and covers the
painter, about the same time he
canvas in bold, intense neons,
broke away from a stressful job
DWWKHSRVWRI¿FHWRUHVHWKLVKHDG glow-in-the-dark, and metal-
lic paints. The paints and their
he said, and “just relax.” (He
combinations allow the colors to
and a few of his friends were the
shift depending on the light, and
subject of a March 2013 lifestyle
in black light, or course, they take
on living the graveyard shift).
on entirely new characteristics.
Crooke said he sold tie-dyed
Working with the paints
T-shirts and worked odd jobs
has taken plenty of trial and
to pay the bills, and his mother,
error, Crooke said. Some of the
Donna Crooke, who died last
substances are thin, so he applies
July, encouraged him to give
layer after layer to build up col-
painting a go. Tapping into this
ors. And the paints takes several
creative vein took him back to
hours to dry, so he said he works
his childhood, he said, when he
on three canvases at a time, mov-
watched his grandmother, Pat
ing from one to the other as he
Carrico, paint.
needs. Most works take about a
“I was always fascinated as
month to complete, he estimated,
a kid — how’d she do that?” he
but some took several months to
said.
a year.
His early efforts focused on
Crooke often
uses glow-in-
the-dark paints
in many of his
works. Here are
an example of
his paintings as
seen under a
black light. The
works are (top)
“Bereaved,”
“Melancholy
Me,” “Inside
a Child Like
Mind,” (bottom)
“Her Emotional
Metamorpho-
sis” and “Pro-
biotic Cure for
Depression.”
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
H
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Building up layers also allows
him to play with depth, shapes
and textures to create other multi-
dimensional effects. Cellular-like
structures in “Probiotic Cure for
Depression” look scooped out,
but close inspection reveals the
paint and texture help fool the
eye.
“That’s really important to
me,” he said. “I want to achieve
real texture, real depth.”
Family and friends will gander
at the works for hours, he said,
and even point out images he
did not realize he created. And
someone always asks him what
he calls his style.
“Some people call it ‘organ-
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Artist Rosco Crooke works on a painting titled “Thinking Happy Thoughts” at his home studio
Wednesday in Pendleton.
ical,’” he said. “Kind of leaning
toward that a little.”
The term “abstract” comes up
a lot, he said, but not much of his
work is abstract, which in art is a
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paintings have all sorts of images,
but they are not usually abstracts
of real things. The work is more
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cated.
“I’m trying to make my own
style, my own avant garde thing,”
he said.
He also often employs oval
canvases. Squares and rectangles
make people look to the edges
and for points to where the work
ends, he said, but ovals move
eyes to the center. And ovals are
a common shape for mirrors, he
said, which again plays into the
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Crooke described himself as
“hyper-emotional,” and what he
feels he puts into the work. He
made “Tree of Doubt” when he
questioned if he was on the right
life path, if he maybe should
chuck the whole artist thing and
strive for a regular job.
“After it was done ... doubt
will not control me,” he said.
“I’m going to move past it,”
Crooke has taken to the
Internet to help market himself
as an artist and his paintings. His
website, www.carricocreations.
com, as well as the commercial
website Etsy, has allowed him
to sell works locally and to folks
hundreds of miles away. He also
has used “guerrilla marketing” to
help build some buzz, though a
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He said a few weeks ago he
mailed pictures of his art and an
accompanying messages to 18
people in Pendleton — some who
work at a bank, teachers at Blue
Mountain Community College,
two mental health professionals
and one medical doctor. He said
the hope was to get a few people
talking about the painting and
sharing about his work.
But some of the recipients
called the police on Feb. 5. Pend-
leton police Chief Stuart Roberts
said the photos and the “cryptic
messages” on them made a few
people uneasy and concerned, so
Sgt. Paul Wolverton looked into
it. Roberts said Crooke cooper-
ated with the brief investigation
and did not violate the law, but
KHVKRXOG¿QGDEHWWHUZD\WRJHW
out his message.
“I feel bad it was received that
way,” Crooke said. “That was not
my intent.”
A more traditional display of
his work is on the horizon at the
Pendleton Center for the Arts.
Center director Roberta Lavadour
said she took a look at Crooke’s
portfolio and offered him to
have a showing in the center’s
Lorenzen Board Room Gallery.
The area showcases artists who
are just starting out, she said,
and lets them gain some expo-
sure while they learn the ropes
of being artists, which includes
how to display work and create
artist statements. Lavadour said
Crooke’s paintings will be on
display June 4-26.
Crook said he is thrilled with
the prospect and aims to have at
least 10 paintings for the show.
The tricky part, though, might
be trying to show the paintings
under a black light.
———
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.com or
541-966-0833.