Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411290002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Or at least, he does his best. A Callaway stone mason, Provo paints in his spare time, in the style of the Spanish master.
It is not the only thing about him that could make a person blink.
In fact, Provo is a riddle in blue jeans, sneakers and a "Barcelona" cap.
A country boy who dislikes coming to town, Provo nevertheless spent 17 years of his life in Spain.
He speaks fluent Spanish - and English with the twang of Texas, where he was born.
His calloused hand feels like pumice.
His paintings hang in the Roanoke YMCA.
In fact, the exhibit at the Y - his first major show - has been a breakthrough for the artist, who once lived down the street from Spanish master Joan Miro. He has sold four paintings since the show opened. They are the first he has sold in the United States.
About Miro:
Provo was 14 years old at the time, and not shy.
"One day I just went up and knocked on the door. His wife answered. She said, 'Joan, you've got a little visitor.' He took me through his studio. I said, 'I can do that.'"
Maybe so.
But artistic success has been slow in coming for Provo, who suffered a heart attack at age 26, and at 41 has lived through just about everything but fame.
Provo was born in Texas. When his parents split up, his mother took her children overseas.
"We went for a year and ended up staying 17,'' Provo said of the family journey to Spain. "I loved it there. It really is nice."
The temptations proved too much, however: As a grown-up, Provo eventually yielded to a life-style that included drinks for breakfast and workdays sprinkled with sangria.
He blames his youthful heart attack on a diet of alcohol and junk food; his hysterical heart at one point was beating 170 beats a minute.
Emergency workers sliced a knife blade into his leg, he said, simply to distract his attention from his hammering chest and give his heart a chance to slow down.
Clearly, he survived.
He also began to go to church.
"I gave my life to the Lord," Provo said in a recent interview at the Y, surrounded by his colorful work. "God gave me the strength to quit [drinking]. It took awhile."
He has been clean now for six years. He only recently has begun to feel the urge to paint regularly again, after nearly giving it up completely on his return from Spain in 1979.
He is still learning, he said. "Painting every day, that's the main thing," Provo believes.
In addition to his painting and stone work, Provo and his wife, Susan, run a Christian book store in Rocky Mount. They have two children, Jonathan, 10, and Anna, 8.
"She's going to be a painter," Provo says of his daughter.
Affected, he is not. Provo takes as much pride in his stonework as his paintings, and eagerly showed off photographs of the rock walls and chimneys he has made.
Provo also brought along to an interview two paintings that were not included in his exhibit. The paintings lay in the back of his pickup truck.
Someone wondered if they mightn't bounce right out.
No problem.
"I'll just put my power saw on top of them," Provo said.
Pattie Neal, who handles art exhibits for the Y, first met Provo at Studios on the Square, where she worked at the time.
Neal - whose own accent still holds plenty of her native North Carolina hills - and the plain-spoken Provo quickly hit it off. "There was a great rapport between us," she said. "We got to be friends."
When she saw Provo's work, Neal was delighted. "It was so far from the ordinary fare," she said.
Last spring, when Neal took over responsibility for hanging artwork at the Y, she immediately thought of Provo.
"You know how you can do something for somebody and it's so painless it just makes you grin?" she said. "That was exactly what I felt like."
So what does Provo paint?
"I just like whimsical stuff," he said. "Life's so serious. We need a little bit of joy."
Still, his own life's conflicts seem represented in the happy colors. A reclining woman with a glass in her hand is "The Good Life" - while "Prophet of joy" shows the biblical David playing a flute.
Provo insisted that he doesn't give much thought to his subject matter until he is well underway - if then.
"You can't take painting too seriously," he said. "Some people go overboard. I think painting is just a good hobby."
And success?
"If it happens, it happens," Provo said. "If it does, big deal anyway. It's only money."
by CNB