The Extraordinary Ray Robinson, Artist

Once in a lifetime, a person comes along and leaves a mark on wisdom, like the marks on a page that define visual space. It leaves a long-standing impression on the growth of an individual like the growth in understanding a piece of art. How one sees the world is improved by reflection on the two forms of reality, the dimension on the easel and the world around us. What brings them together is the forefront to reality through instruction.

The best grace a teacher can give a student is to breathe and let them do their own thing. Instruct, is in the hand of the form itself. Guidance is intuitive and shows little, just enough for the student to grasp the meaning. The demonstration is all. The lecture is intellect expressed, but like a sculpture is centered. Brought to rise from the hand of the guide. Teachers are all guides. Guides in the living are meant to meet for a purpose, students and teachers.

Born in England raised in London, Ray Robinson’s first profession was as a Mathematician. However, he changed the course of his career and life by attending the distinguished Slade School of Art, where he earned the degree of DFA (Doctorate of Fine Art). His teacher was Reg Butler, “one of the best-known Sculptors of the 1950’s and 1960's,” who also happened to be a relative of Yeats (Wikipedia).

"Ray Robinson’s work was exhibited alongside other greats of the season, major artists of the 1960’s — David Hockney, Frank Auerbach, Henry Moore, and others. Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff, were followers of David Bomberg and Ray Robinson." (Sourced online article)

I believe the art displayed here is his earlier works, his latter work is not available online but by an art agent.

His most recent exhibit in New York etc. was called The Third Door. Though displayed as a story between two worlds, his early experiences in life, it is all artistic form, there is not a dark bone in this man. Imagery shows the figure depicted in his light (his hand, painting, rendering, approach), and as remembered from earlier scenes of life when he was witness to cruelty in England of the "burning times."

Ray is about the beauty of art and art for art's sake. Doing art matters most.

Ray taught at the Bath Academy in UK. Then he moved to Canada, where he first worked at Queen’s University in Ontario. Then he taught at HB Beal Secondary School for the Arts, Fanshawe College, and then became the Head of the Art Department of Lambton College in Sarnia, Ontario. That is where I was privileged to know him as his student, first in art fundamental studies, then onto the advanced drawing and painting for a 2nd and 3rd year, then as an art model for his classes. Teacher-student, teacher-model, I was privileged to spend many, many hours in the studio absorbing his teaching. I like to keep in touch with Ray as he made an impressionable impact on me. Plus, he is an all-around likable man, a very private person.

Ray is a deep thinker with a wonderful way of getting his point across. He is one of the few people I know that can see insight into anything. He could describe a curtain and a wave of light in minutes or discuss a chair for hours.

His student’s idolized him, and I don’t know if he realizes that. A few of us affectionately referred to those enraptured as “The Raylings.” So naturally, they gravitated to wherever he was. On breaks, instead of heading to the cafeteria, they would be seated or standing around him in the hallway, eager to hold his attention. Keen to know more about him, anything. His classes were always filled, and it was not unusual to have visiting artists from around the world who went to Lambton College in Sarnia, Ontario Canada, to study with him for a year. Students from China, England, Italy, India, and more. His students were given advanced standing and went directly into the second year of other post-secondary studies in art.

The concepts he taught were to create effective visual space as well as other things. Steps to enlightened composition. Plus, how to use marks, tones, and color for that purpose. To artistically see the organization of visual concepts in the subject matter and have it organized perceptually is not the same as just treating the subject matter in two-dimensional space. That is some of what we learned as students of Ray Robinson.

Ray Robinson continued to head the art department at Lambton College until retirement. He continues doing and exhibiting his artwork.

He didn’t dissect the process or the spirit of art. It was there, in the meaning of what he was saying, how he broached a subject. To see the symbolism of a gesture or the fact of it. How the two resided in one effort to create a dynamic or still point in the space of the art piece or spirit of the work.

May I introduce to you Artist, Ray Robinson.

INTERVIEW - HIS WORDS

Q) What would you say the highlight of your artistic career is? (Studying, exhibiting, teaching, or anything else?)

A) BEING ABLE, THROUGH MY WORK, TO ADD TO THE VISUAL BEAUTY IN THE WORLD………..AND IN TEACHING TO HEAR AGAIN TO VOICES OF MY MASTERS AND THEIR MASTERS AS I AND THEY ANSWER THE SAME BASIC QUESTIONS ASKED BY THE NEW STUDENTS……..HOW WOULD A QUESTION ON COLOUR BE ANSWERED BY REMBRANDT AND MATISSE……..SO THE WHEEL OF CULTURE TURNS

Q) What made you decide on painting?

A) I DID NOT……..I AM TRAINED FIRST AT BROMLEY AND THEN THE SLADE AS A SCULPTOR. IN RECENT YEARS I HAVE LOST THE USE OF ONE EYE……..AND WHAT IS A SCULPTOR WITHOUT DEPTH PERCEPTION?

Q) You went to an excellent school for the arts. How was that formative in your personal development, or was their strength in your way that mattered more at that stage in life?

A) BOTH……..AN ARTIST NEEDS A MASTERY OF THE TECHNIQUES

A SINGLE HUMAN MIND AND SOUL IS NOT BIG ENOUGH TO MAKE ART

AFTER TECHNIQUE AND ARTIST MUST STEP ASIDE FROM ALL OF THE KNOWN

Q) Do you think the creative process has anything to do with the spiritual side of life?

A) ALL OF THE UNKNOWN………OUTSIDE THE PHYSICAL, THE SPIRITUAL

Q) Do you think art has the same value in culture as it did twenty or thirty years ago?

A)YES, OF COURSE……….IN REPRESENTING TODAY’S VALUES, IT MUST EXPLORE THE ABSTRACT, AND IN THIS, IT HAS LOST A COMMON AUDIENCE

Q) Do you have favourite artists that you admire?

A) ANYONE THAT HAS MADE MORE THAN A HUNDRED PIECES

Q) What is the most important thing about painting?

A)DRAWING, WHICH IS THE STRUCTURE

THE CONTROL OF THE SEPARATION OF COLOUR AND COLOUR AND OF TONE AND TONE………IN A WORD DRAWING

Q) What advice would you give an aspiring artist?

A)LISTEN TO EVERYTHING AND BELIEVE NOTHING

Thank you so very much, Ray.

Ray Robinson works on his artwork daily contributing to the true meaning of the word Artist. Relishing in every moment of true beginning between mind and purpose of doing art.

Copyright © 2022 Lisa A Lachapelle. All rights reserved.

More of Lachapelle’s work HERE