Carroll "The Paintbrush Poet"

"I never went to art school.

I'm an American artist merging old and new art the old-fashioned way, using Series 7 sable paintbrushes. I love, love, love sports!

"I began drawing meticulously as a 4½ y/o about Christmas after my older sister perished in 1955 on Rebel Hil in Conshohocken, suburban Philly. Watercolor helped me work through it at 43 y/o - WCs are one of the last unregulated prestigious luxury items you can own.

Surprise!!!

"After a fundraiser a businessman told me,

'This [Carroll] will hang between my 2 Picassos and a Chagall on my ranch.'  You should have watched him giddily bidding against himself, as if it was Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi.

I didn't see that coming, not even in my dreams. It was like a childhood Christmas morning"!

"I see what others do not see. A Yale MFA (Art History), who was a Yale museum curator, called me 'Genius' and "Tiger" with a higher IQ than her 160. Picasso was 175. I don't know.

I was an outsider in the local art world -

I believe I have a high EQ though.

"The idea that the harder you work, the better you’re going to be is just garbage.

The greatest improvement is

made by the man or woman who

works most intelligently".

"I loved poking around our woodland stream,

canoeing the Pine Barrens, Boundary Waters, birding, running Valley Forge NP, cycling inland Maine, backpacking the Appalachian Trail and running Yosemite, ... Track and road bicycle racing up and down the East Coast, running 100s and ladders on the track, and keeping my breathing relaxed and HR very, very low. Later, it all benefitted my ability to paint".

"I was a Principal Investigator at The Academy of Natural Sciences (Pre-dated the Smithsonian and the Franklin Institute). I was dazzled by the busloads of kids buzzing our exhibits and Moore art students drawing our panoramas. I left the Academy wanting to help people to love themselves and as a result take better care of our environment.

"I'll never forget the experience of visiting Dr. Barnes home and witnessing his cherry-picked collection. I love Homer's, Marin's, John Singer Sargent's, Audubon's, O'Keeffe's, Rockwell's, and Edward Hopper's Cape Cod, watercolors ---

and Jackson Pollack's drip oil paintings.

"My favorite painter, Vincent van Gogh -

I still have both ears"!

 Vincent Van Gogh Visits the Gallery | Vincent and the Doctor | Doctor Who

"You wouldn't believe the story of how I learned to paint clouds! So too, the big dog story, the sunflowers, be an artist in life, and roped in from above. All I really wanted is to be understood. Art taught me to see.

We dined at a nice Cedar Springs restaurant. I showed Alcaraz my Purple Thistles. 'Come to Spain and I'll teach you to do what I do.'  I was the first person ever allowed into his atelier.

"The art on your walls shapes your empathy, creativity and critical seeing. Art, science, sports

and confident proof can and do coexist.

 "One time, I was hurt. I was on the bench. Larry comes by during warm-ups and says, 'Don't worry, Earvin. I'm gonna put on a show for you.' I think he scored 40 that night and I think he only missed two shots. He'd get that walk goin' and that blond hair floppin'

and you knew you were gonna be in for

a long, long night". - Magic Johnson,

#32 Los Angeles Lakers

The 15 Coldest Larry Bird Trash-Talking Stories quoted by Jose Martinez, Feb. 2015

"Four-star General Tommy Franks penned the foreword to my 1st journal, Ode to Joy., introduced by a Country Western Hall of Fame and CGMA Award Winning guitarist, singer-songwriter - Produced by recording artist, multi-Grammy and Dove Winner, Gary S. Paxton of Branson, Missouri, USA. I sent a 1st Edition to Serene Majesty The King of Spain and got an appreciative letter nine days later, with a translation and cover letter from the Spanish Ambassador in Washington, D.C.

General Franks, FMR USCENTCOM commander, gave me a personal introduction to the President of the United States. Arts patron, Kitsy Westmoreland had her son take her picture with me at a black tie aboard the Queen Mary, amidst 40 MOHs, where a Knight Commander, Knights of Malta, who reported directly to the Pope, invited me to join South American and former US Presidents in his priory.

"Never leave that till tomorrow which you

can do today". - Benjamin Franklin, polymath,

a Founding Father of the United States, drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence. 

"At about 3 y/o I began collecting pennies,

nickels and dimes to help support two children orphaned when their doctor parents perished

in a private plane crash. I made 5,000 S/N lithos of 4 colored pencil drawings of beautiful north Arkansas and gifted them to hospital patients. Parkland President and CEO Ron J. Anderson, MD told me he envisioned my artwork in every public hospital nationwide. There were more.

"Who do you play for"?

- Coach Herb Brooks, U of M and Olympic Ice Hockey Gold Medal (Miracle, 2004 film)

U.S.A.

"I was named in homage to our Carroll County next door neighbor, a signer of the Declaration of Independence (1776) - We sailed into Maryland on the Lydia from Burgundy, France - where Arches® Aquarelle, my favorite Bright White Cold Press is made. Our patriarch boarded the tall ship as Johannes Jacques Burgund and got off as Johan Jacob Burgoon.

One son enlisted under Gen. Washington.

Washington encamped on Rebel Hill on his frigid march to overwinter at Valley Forge.

(Where we lived. I learned to ride my English racing bicycle across the Matsonford Road in Calvary Cemetery when I was 7 y/o.).

"My older sister's name was Helen, and it was a Brazilian heiress named Helena who arranged

for me to learn from Paco Alcaraz in Spain."