Virtuosos of Pen & Paint



Smoke and Mirrors by Chuck Forsman

I stopped by the Robischon Gallery at 18th and Wazee Streets and enjoyed Chuck Forsman’s creative genius for a few minutes. I love doing that, just popping into art galleries.

Chuck Forsman is a local artist whose work is inspiring to me. His paintings are real and yet surreal. They have a unique intensity about them. They are pastoral and whimsical, together, in the same moment, sort of like the animation in the movie, “UP”. It was a fun diversion.

Painters and writers are both “super-geniuses” to me, because they can take a thought and turn it into a masterpiece. Later in the day, I picked up Andre Aciman’s new book, Alibis. The dust jacket calls Alibis ‘a luminous series of linked essays about time, place, identity, and art.’ Sounds a little stuffy, there, doesn’t it? But each essay, and especially “Roman Hours” flows on the pages and in my mind, the words dancing gracefully together, never a misstep. Aciman definitely knows how to arrange his words.

It was a pretty fine autumn day, made spectacular by Forsman’s paintbrush and Aciman’s pen. Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing your creative genius with me.