Savannah Artist Profile: Air Force veteran stocks treasure trove of his artwork in guest bedroom

“My wife said, ‘You have 500 paintings in here!’” Fluid artist Leroy Bolden laughed as we stood in his home’s guest room-turned-storage space, surrounded by his work.

The 74-year-old former Air Force K-9 handler laughs a lot, and when he smiles, his face lights up. As he speaks, the tall man often extends his long arms, a welcoming affectation that reinforces his good nature.

His artwork, “pour paintings” that incorporate dozens of colors and numerous application techniques, are equally joyful, filled with abstract imagery that is most certainly beautiful, oftentimes profound.

“I’m just going out and following the flow of what happens when I start,” he said.

“Is this woman stalking me?”

Art has always been a part of Bolden’s life, going as far back as his early days in the military. Assigned to a base in Thailand, he wasn’t inclined to spend his free time at the bars and clubs like his fellow airmen, so he picked up drawing, using whatever pens, pencils and markers he could get his hands on.

Creating artwork, however, was always a secondary activity for the veteran, and something that had mostly fallen by the wayside later in life. That was until local artist and Telfair Museums’ Veterans Guided Open Studio Program co-organizer Theresa Martin spotted him at a local Veterans Affairs clinic, where she was doing regular outreach for the weekly art gathering.

“When I would go for my appointments, she would come out and say, ‘Are you coming to our art class?’” Bolden chuckled as he recalled his initial interactions with the tenacious Martin. “And I was like, ‘Is this woman stalking me?’ Because every time I was there she would find me!

“How am I gonna get this woman off my back,” he remembered asking himself. “I guess I’m gonna have to go to the art class.”

The program, headed on the Telfair Museums’ side by Education Studio Programs Manager Kip Bradley (a talented painter in his own right), meets from 1-4 p.m. every Saturday at the Jepson Center. Initially, Bolden just sat and watched, unsure of what to do, flummoxed by the notions of mixing paints and rendering lifelike imagery. Then one of his fellow veterans, landscape painter Lawrence Brown, suggested he take a look at YouTube to learn a few techniques to get him started.

That’s when he discovered the style that would ultimately become his form of creative expression.

“I saw these people pouring paint,” Bolden related. “It’s just interesting to watch people do it. If you look at fluid art, it looks like all you’re doing is pouring some paint in a cup and pouring it on the canvas. It’s not as simple as that.”

Before long, the man who’d done little more than the occasional, as he described it, “artsy, craftsy” project was doing three, four, or even five paintings in a single open studio session. Brown, who initially ribbed Bolden for the “mess” he was making, even changed his tune.

“I was pouring one day, and he said, ‘You gonna give me that?’” The artist recalled with a smile.

“I don’t think that God gave me this for me to hide in a closet”

Bolden’s pour paintings are abstract, but not without meaning. Using the techniques he’s learned over the past 5-6 years he’s been in the Veteran’s art program, along with instincts he believes derive from his faith in a higher power, the artist is able to touch on issues that he believes are important.

“To me, that’s a God piece,” he said, pointing to ‘Ascension,’ a vibrant painting that has an implied form of a head in the upper righthand corner. “Because God is above everything. His reach is unmeasurable. He’s always around us.

“I don’t think that when I poured the paints and put them in the cup, that I was gonna get that,” he went on to say. “It is the Spirit that gives us life and creativity that pours out onto the canvas.”

The painter has additionally tackled issues such as abortion, the human body, and the cosmos, sometimes with intent, sometimes completely by happy accident, as was the case with ‘Ascension.’ Amongst the not quite 500 paintings in his guest bedroom are some of each, in stacks leaning against all four walls. Flipping through them is like digging through an artistic treasure chest, where each painting brings beauty and revelation for those lucky enough to see them.

But Bolden doesn’t intend to keep his works hidden for much longer. Although it’s not apparent in his manner, the artist has been diagnosed with both prostate cancer and carcinoma, and he knows that it’s time for people to see his creations, as he believes God has intended.

“I don’t think that God gave me this for me to hide in a closet,” he opined. “That light on the hill? You don’t cover it, because you want people to see it.”

Find Leroy Bolden’s pour painting at https://sva.fineartstudioonline.com/works. For more information about Telfair Museums’ Veterans Guided Open Studio Program contact Kip Bradley at 912-790-8823 or email bradleyk@telfair.org.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Air Force veteran stocks treasure trove of his artwork in Savannah home