Saturday October 21st 2023, 12p to 5p Artist (and Michelle's dad) Rob Eaton will be at the Youngsville, NY tasting room with incredible (and affordable) art prints and original art pieces for sale + the family is pulling from their collection for view on the Forthright Concrete Art Wall! In support of this event Yong (Michelle's Umma) will be serving up incredible anju (Korean bar snacks). Read below to learn more about how Rob found himself in the art space.
ANJU x ART x FORTHRIGHT
SATURDAY OCTOBER 21, 2023 / 12P TO 5P
Forthright cyder & mead tasting room
4052 NY-52, Youngsville NY 12791
Join us Saturday for a special pop-up with local artist Rob Eaton. For one afternoon only you can view a temporary installation of Rob's encaustic plate prints + original paintings on the Forthright concrete art wall. Art prints and a few originals will be for-sale (the family has pulled from their personal pieces for display only and include small sculptures, acrylic paintings and marker drawings). Follow the FB event page for updates!
Rob Eaton was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1956 and grew up in Romeoville, Illinois. He recalls at about the age of four years old, he drew a picture and gave it to his mother Ruth Eaton (Vaughn). She paid him a few cents for it. That got (toddler) Rob into thinking he could make money creating art. “I would draw 3 or 4 pictures, go out to the neighbors and because I was a kid they paid me. Not because I was any damn good. I was basically making stick figures!” Rob laughs as he thinks back to how he truly started out on his journey with art.
From there Rob’s interest in art grew. He says “I didn’t do well in school. Especially when it came to reading and writing. It was discouraging but the praise I would get from other students about my drawings drove me further into pursuing art”.
He continued making art through classes in high school with this as a highlight memory: “In HS I remember we were asked to make a wire sculpture. I decided on making the school mascot in an arched position ready to strike, with an axe which definitely doesn't make any sense but anyway, the acting teacher offered to buy it but I had already decided to give it to my mom for Christmas. I declined. She offered me $50 dollars, which was an enormous amount of money at that time, especially for a kid”. He did not sell the sculpture.
Rob graduated high school in 1975. He found himself in some small-time trouble, hitchhiked around the USA, decided he didn’t want to go back home and joined the US Army. While on rotation back in the United States after a time in South Korea he “...ran into a hippie at a party who was working on an advanced art degree and that there was a craft center nearby on base at Fort Lewis, Washington that had lots of different departments for: ceramics, drawing, leather-working, wood-working…”.
This craft center had a staff of experts to help artists learn new techniques and hone their craft. This was incredible to Rob. He hung around the ceramics department and spent his off time getting high on marijuana and generally just worked on whatever interested him at the moment.
“That is a sum-up of my education In art” Rob replies to his daughter, Michelle’s Eaton’s original question - “How did you get into art?”.
Come meet Rob and the family this Saturday to learn more, eat Korean snacks, and drink apple forward beverages!