Article by James Sellman
Randolph, “Randy” Mayes (born August 5, 1962) had found his calling – a professional chef. His credentials were impeccable: a degree in culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of America; catering, chef for motion-picture studios in Texas and Washington D.C., five venues at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, anniversary bashes, and finally, Executive Chef at the University of Richmond. This career was the envy of most, but providence had other plans for him.
On May 12, 2001, when riding as a single passenger in an elevator on the university campus, a computer-cable malfunction crashed his elevator car, leaving him with profound and lifetime disabling orthopedic-neuromuscular injuries and severe pain.
On disability, Randy struggled with financial insecurity, failed relationships, increased isolation, and uncertainty about his future purpose. Finally, at the age of 60, Randy said, “I found out I was an artist.”
Encouraged by a physician friend, Randy determined to live his life “fully,” to take risks in creating sculptures, drawings and paintings. He was further inspired by the beauty and ceaseless energy and activity of the birds and squirrels that he fed and sheltered in his backyard. “After ten years of darkness, I was able to find me again, but a better, wiser, likable, lovable me.”
“I started exploring techniques of making art, with different media. The more I learned, I discovered a new passion. I find so much joy and peace in the creative process. Each risk I have taken has worked out great, and all of the mistakes teach me more. It is my love of nature and all the beautiful things that God puts in front of us that really inspire me,” Randy says.
“While walking trails through the woods to get to the river, certain sticks, limbs and roots speak to me, and I see something unique hiding within them. So, I would pick them up or dig them out, put them in my SUV to take home and work on them, releasing unrealized beauty.
“Next, I want to learn some basics on how to draw. I first found a neat little book at a yard sale. It seemed to be a grade-school level book about shading, creating dimension, scale, perspective and light.
“A dear friend, Molly, told me to ‘paint what I see!’
“Most of my drawing and painting starts with just one simple, elegant, moving line, creating from that point. Usually I have no idea what it will become. It would end up being a person, an animal or something abstract. I am letting a drawing become what I feel, what it means to be.
“Two things I’ve discovered about myself and my art: 1) I love creating with deep rich colors and iridescent metallic pigment, and 2) I always like to fill the entire page or canvas with color and shapes. I plan to continue learning, growing, stretching out my creativity and challenging myself in art and nature.”
JAMES SELLMAN is the President of the Folk Art Society of America. He and his wife Barbara have been traveling throughout the world collecting art for more than 35 years and have been members of the Folk Art Society of America for 22 years. They have donated more than 200 pieces of traditional African art to Richmond’s Virginia Union University, and they have made significant gifts of drawings and paintings by Thornton Dial to that and other American institutions. The Sellmans have spent the past 25 years supporting African American artists, exhibitions and other academic projects. Since 1978, Sellman has served on the Clinical Faculty of the Medical College of Virginia-VCU Medical School. In 2001, he was recognized by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill as one of the 35 outstanding psychiatrists in America.
As seen in the Folk Art Messenger: