"SLOW RISES" 16x20 oil **SOLD**

The month of May is upon us and with it Dix Baines celebrates fifteen years of pursuing his passion for painting as a full-time artist. Often people ask me how in the world I was able to support his pursuit of a profession as an artist, but if truth be told, I was the one who pushed Dix Baines to jump ship as a project manager for an Interior Design firm and move into the art world.

Dix Baines began his career as an artist at an early age, as he was constantly drawing and sketching on any available paper…including his school books.  In fourth grade his Dad sat him down for a “chat” to discuss the drawings that were found on every page of  the textbooks and to encourage him to focus more on math and a whole lot less on a art.  The conversation didn’t take though, as a few years later Dix’s grandmother gave him his first set of oil paints and he was hooked.  In an interview with Sam Curtis for “Big Sky Journal”(http://dixbaines.com/big-sky-journal/) in 2002,  Dix said ”…He remembers painting with those oils and loving the smell of turpentine and linseed oil. Anybody who loves that smell, look out. It can reach up and bite you”.

That love of art and painting in particular simply would not go away and it was a passion that I was well aware of when we married almost thirty years ago in 1982. I thought that the pursuit of art was something one did later in life as a hobby, not as a career.  In my mind it was a retiree’s past time and one that Dix would explore later in life….much later….after working a “real job” and raising our family. I was to soon learn, however, that being an artist was as viable career as being a doctor, lawyer, or teacher and every bit as important…

Read the “rest of the story” in text and pictures as we celebrate Dix Baines’ 15 years in the Studio fulltime by visiting the Dix Baines blog regularly throughout the month of May.- Kathlyn Gogarty-Baines