FORREST RODTS
LANDSCAPE OF LIFE
by lucretia voigt independent arts writer
Several hundred years ago, a whaling captain by the name of Gardner made Nantucket his home. He purchased some houses in 'Sconset, sailed through his career, took care of his family. Two hundred years later, whaling is not a career of choice on the island. However, Gardner's greatgreat great grandchildren still visit those cottages, walking on the same floorboards, looking out on the landscape that he loved and to which he kept returning. That landscape has kept sparking creativity in his family from generation to generation and Forrest Rodts is testament to the love of the island that has been passed through his family's DNA.

"We moved around when I was a kid so [Nantucket] was always more like my hometown than anywhere else," Rodts reminisced recently when asked about his connection to the island. "When I started going down [to Nantucket], it was wide open, no houses on the moors, a beautiful quiet place to be. Sort of like it is now during the off season."

Forrest Rodts, whose artwork can be seen at the Robert Wilson Galleries at 34 Main Street, is an artist whose heart may belong to Nantucket but whose address is Marblehead, Mass.

"When I first moved [to Marblehead], before I was married, I moved here because it reminded me of Nantucket," he explained. "It was attached so I could get to Boston and skiing. At the time I was leaving Boston and was either going to be moving to Nantucket or here, and this seemed the saner choice. It had a lot of the same feeling of Nantucket, and I could still get to Nantucket in the summertime."

While Rodts' acrylic paintings have created a following with many Nantucket and Cape Cod art collectors, he did not grow up thinking he would be an artist. He attended Hobart College in Geneva, New York and graduated in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and a minor in fine arts. It was during college that he first took up a paintbrush and even though he was studying the creativity of finance, the visual artist in him was biding its time waiting for him to find his way.

"I had to be practical," he said when explaining his pursuit of a degree in economics. "Never did I think I was going to be an artist. I was an investment banker when I got out of school. I figured that no matter what I ended up doing I needed a good business background. I lucked out and realized as soon as I started the investment business that it was not my calling, and then I was able to turn a hobby into a living with my paintings."

His business background has been an asset to his career. "I knew a lot of artists in college who tried to have an artistic career, and they figured they could just go by artistic integrity, just be driven by that," he explained. "To make it into a career, you really have to treat it as a business. If you have some practical business understanding, it makes it a lot easier."

Rodts makes it sound easy, and that easy-going style influences his paintings. You can feel the water beneath your bow and the breeze on your face when you gaze at "Chasing Your Shadow." He has chosen to continue painting with acrylics even though others have nudged him to cross over to oils. "I paint like I draw. If I painted in oil I'd be messing up the painting all the time. If I paint with acrylic, it dries quicker. I paint in very thin layers so if I don't like something I paint right over it in a matter of minutes."

His paintings evoke a serenity, an aura that finds its way through Rodts onto the canvas. "That's the fun for me. I love the little details," he laughed when asked about the precision of his paintings. "It's a challenge for me to keep a mood, have it still be a nice painting and speak to a mood that I'm trying to evoke, and make it look as realistic as possible. It is a good challenge for me. Each time I'm trying to make it be a little more realistic in every painting I do but not so much that that is what your attention is drawn to."

This attention to detail, what keeps you in front of his paintings for hours, pulling you in to the world he has created, is evident not only in his artwork but also in his life. He and his wife Linda live in a house that harkens from 1754, the time of his whaling ancestors from Nantucket. "I had the love of old houses from Nantucket, which was the reason I loved this house. Most people look at old houses up here and say 'Why would you want to buy that?' I just love the feel of an old house. I got that from growing up in Nantucket. If you get that, then you love the imperfections, which is just like real life. Things settle. It adds to that charm. This house has been up for 200 years - they built it well to last that long."

Rodts expects Nantucket to inspire him for many years to come, and just like his ancestors set the stage 200 years ago for the art he creates today, his descendants will benefit from his harkening the song of his muse, this little

island that keeps calling him back. I

- Forrest Rodts' artwork can be seen at Robert Wilson Galleries, 34 Main Street, or on his Web site at www.forrestrodts.com.